


I sent you three boats

by reckonedrightly



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Demonic Possession, Domestic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Requited Unrequited Love, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-16 08:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13632864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reckonedrightly/pseuds/reckonedrightly
Summary: They’re done being apart from each other, Tomás realises suddenly. That’s what it is — that’s the certainty he feels when he looks at Marcus.A fix-it fic for an imagined s3, in which Marcus and Tomás recover together in a rural parish in Michigan. Features: the long-term effects of demonic possession, parish politics, interior design, Catholic guilt, not-so-unrequited love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the phrase 'the False _____' to indicate an integrated demon is great, and comes from clockheartedcrocodile; the urge to write a domestic fic came from riotrogers.
> 
> I'd guess this is probably likely to be about 7/8 chapters long, but don't hold me to that.

The demon leaves Tomás just before dawn. Then everything becomes jumbled and hazy as exhaustion sets in. The nuns, who have been keeping their distance, surge forwards: Sister Elaine, a doctor, drops to her knees and starts checking for a pulse. Marcus starts to weep, loud and childish sobs that come right from the bottom of his ribcage. Mouse pulls him away. Puts him in a back room and threatens to tape his mouth shut if he doesn’t shut up, alternates between holding him in her arms and holding him in a headlock.

“I have to see him,” he croaks at her, beseeching, holding her hands tight.

“He’s fine,” Mouse hisses back. “You’ve done your bit, he’s  _fine_.”

An ambulance comes and goes, blue lights pulsing eerily through the natty floral convent curtains. Marcus springs up and scrambles for the door, but Mouse catches him. They tussle; it’s ugly and clumsy. She punches him in the face and then says, “It’s going to be okay,” as she holds him up and wipes the blood off his face with her sleeve. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Marcus. It’s going to be okay. But you can’t, you know you can’t. Let them see to him. There’s nothing you can do just now. You need to rest.”

“I can’t sleep while he’s out there.”

“I know. That’s why I said rest, not sleep.” Experimentally, she lets go of him. He drops onto the narrow single bed and wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his jumper. Satisfied, she nods, and from the inside of her jacket produces a battered pack of tobacco. She waggles it, waggles her eyebrows too, like she’s done something incredible. She has — she just did — she just saved Tomás’ life — and she’s acting like producing an old pack of baccy is her finest moment. She looks very young. Marcus stares at her.

“I quit,” he says. He wants to say something else but he doesn’t know what that something else is. Mouse looks alarmed, not without reason. When they’d first met, Marcus had been on thirty a day. He had taught her to roll cigarettes. She had joined him on his cigarette breaks, chatted to him and rolled for them both, said she liked having something to do with her hands. The first time she’d said that he’d blushed all the way to the tops of his ears. “I quit five... _six_ years ago.”

“Seriously?” she says, like her faith has been threatened.

“Yeah.”

“Well, _I_ want one.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says, sniffs hard. “So do I.”

They sneak out of the convent like teenagers. Mouse holds him up most of the way. Marcus mumbles, “When did you get so strong,” and she just laughs. It’s not a good sound, so he doesn’t push. They sit on a bench in the garden, Mouse on his good side so he can hear her properly, and then they watch as the sun breaches the horizon, and they lean their shoulders together and they smoke.

“Thank you,” Marcus says. The smoke hurts his throat, makes his eyes water.

“I stole enough of yours, back in the day.”

“I didn’t mean for the cigarette.”

Mouse nods, slowly. Takes a drag. “Yeah,” she says. “Well. I — Marcus?”

“Yeah?”

Mouse takes so long to respond that Marcus assumes she isn’t going to. He looks up, instead, stares into the heavens. The sky is salmon-pink and gold and his hands are shaking. He thinks of Tomás waking up alone in a hospital bed and closes his eyes for a moment. Mouse says, “I’m only going to say this once. You don’t get to do to him what you did to me. You _don’t get to_.”

Marcus says, “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t ask for you to bloody well apologise.” She sniffs loud and inelegant and looks over at him and smiles, shakes her head. “Bastard. I don’t even need to say it, really, do I?”

“What?”

“Well.” She sticks her cigarette in her mouth and talks around it. As she does, she fusses with her fingernails, digs black grime out from under them, stares intently downwards. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? You wouldn’t leave him. You can’t. You want to chase after that ambulance like a dog in traffic. I got jealous, Marcus. Just a bit. Not because of how I am now but because of _how it could have been_. You know what that’s like? Not like I want you anymore, but there’s this ghost of me I carry that still loves you.”

“I know what that’s like.”

“Yeah. Alright.”

“I do. I left — I couldn’t help you. I wasn’t strong enough.”

“I know,” Mouse says, and grips his arm. “That’s the point. You were strong enough — for him. That’s what I’m telling you, you _arse_.”

Marcus stubs out his cigarette on the arm of the bench and says, “That obvious, is it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mouse says, and sighs. She leans against him, and puts her head on his shoulder; he leans his cheek atop her head, feels the warmth of her hair. She smells of cigarettes and sweat and incense. “It’s very obvious. To everyone except him, I think.”

They stay out there for a long while. As the sky starts to lighten and crack blue, Mouse says, “It was the hair.”

“Mn?”

“The hair,” she says. “You know, you cut it. And you stopped dying it.”

“I accepted my age.”

“Well. It helped me get over that little crush,” Mouse says. “I liked you in denial. With that long, stupid, bloody hair.” She’s laughing and so is he, and their arms are wrapped around each other.

 

* * *

 

For once, the padded room actually helps. Bennett drops like a stone but lands square on the battered grey mattress with a thud and a distressed noise. His beautiful dark suit is falling apart, his tie long since gone, bloody scratches at his throat darkening the once-crisp white cotton of his shirt collar.

As ever, the moment after exorcism, Marcus finds his face is wet, though he doesn’t know when he started crying. As ever, the moment after exorcism, everything shudders as if through a heat-haze. He grips Tomás’ shoulder and Tomás grips his, and then they’re pulling their foreheads together. Mouse is at Bennett’s side. The noise of her voice filters in through the roaring in Marcus’ ears, but only the noise: the words don’t take shape. She’s bent over Bennett, her dark hair falling onto his chest. Tomás’ thumb is at Marcus’ ear, and he says, “I told you I could do it, Marcus, I told you,” but he sounds pleading, not proud. There’s a raw edge of panicky need in his voice.

“I know,” Marcus says, creaky through tears, “I know, love, I know, you did so well, it’s over now,” and then Tomás closes the two-inch gap between their lips which has never been closed before.

The world fizzles then goes out around them like a candle flickering and put out by a draft. Tomás’ mouth is hot and he tastes of bad coffee and the split lip that the False Bennett gave him two hours ago. Marcus fumbles at his neck, his hair, tries to pour their bodies together as tight as he can. It’s not a long kiss. It’s quick and too-hard and messy. Marcus has to break it to sniff and wipe his face with the arm of his shirt.

And Tomás says, “Finally. Marcus, _sweetheart_ , you’re so oblivious sometimes.” And Marcus looks and sees him smiling all sweet, his eyes all wrong.

The sound Marcus makes comes right from the back of his throat. He shoves the False Tomás away, and it starts to laugh. Not maniacal, not demonic, just Tomás’ laugh, rough and sweet.

Mouse stands. Bennett is vomiting blood onto the floor. There’s the noise of a gun cocking. And Mouse says, “Get the fuck away from him,” though Marcus doesn’t know which of them she’s threatening.

It doesn’t matter. He dives for her: they hit the ground together and the gun goes off right by Marcus’ head and blows a tiny black hole in the ceiling. The noise fills the room, a sound so loud it’s no sound at all. It trails a high-pitched ringing in its wake. Mouse screams something — he sees her mouth move — but he can’t hear it. Dust and plaster fall from above in slow-motion eddies. Then he’s got her wrist and he slams it against the floor until the gun tumbles from her hand, and he’s scrambling upright, and he points it first at Tomás — still laughing — and then at Mouse.

A dull, cold pain grips the whole left side of his face, and he can’t work out where it’s centred on until he reaches up and discovers that the bullet didn’t entirely miss him. There’s a wet groove along his scalp and the top of his ear is mangled. No sound filters in on that side at all, like someone has pressed a pillow to it. But the ringing is quieter on his right side now, just enough to make out what Mouse is snarling at him.

“...not _me_ ,” she says, her teeth bared, “that thing behind you,” the words just about audible. She’s crouched on the floor, starting to struggle to her feet. Bennett is passed out beside her, his chest shuddering too quickly. The gun is wobbling in Marcus’ hand, but he keeps it trained on her. “Shoot it, Marcus!”

Tomás’ hand is on his back. It bleeds warmth through his sweat-soaked shirt. His lips come to his right ear. “Marcus,” he says, pleading. “Please, for me. Please, don’t let her hurt me. You told me you would bring me back and _here I am_.”

Marcus drives his elbow back into the False Tomás’ nose.

 

* * *

 

Marcus wakes up with a ragged cry in the hospital waiting room, upends half a cup of cold coffee he left on the arm of the uncomfortable chair. It spills across his knee and then the paper cup goes bouncing across the floor, leaking brown dregs.

He’s crouched down and cleaning it up with blue paper towels from the bathroom when the nurse touches his shoulder. He jumps.

“Sorry,” she says. Her name is Camila; they’ve met before. Yesterday she peeled him from the chair by Tomás’ bed, insisted he eat something. _It just feels like he’s going to wake up the second I go_ , he’d told her. “Sorry, you didn’t — I think you didn’t hear me?”

“Is he okay?” Marcus asks. He’s on his feet, clutching the sodden towels with both hands. “Oh, God, is —”

She grabs his arm, and smiles. Her eyes crease up. She has gaps in her teeth. “He’s awake,” she says, “he’s asking for you,” and Marcus — he shoves the towels into her hands and kisses her on the cheek, mutters _God bless you God bless you_ , and sprints by her. He hears her laughter follow him down the corridor.

He comes clattering through the door of the private room that Vatican money has afforded them. And there he is: Tomás, dark shadows under his eyes, a splint on his re-set nose and stitches in his forehead, just as Marcus has seen him before — except now, for the first time in three days, his eyes are open.

Marcus ignores the chair and collapses instead to his knees by the bed. He grabs Tomás’ closest hand with both of his and gabbles out — he doesn’t know. Apologies, mostly. Tomás’ fingers twitch in his and then he squeezes, and he says, “Marcus, Marcus, it’s okay, you brought me back, I — I am so — oh my God, Marcus, what happened to your _ear?_ ”

To Marcus’ own amazement, _that_ is when he bursts into tears. He had just assumed he was already crying.

 

* * *

 

Of course, the doctors pronounce themselves stumped. Tomás came in with his nose, ribs and one leg broken, a punctured lung and fairly severe blood loss. That’s all standard enough. They can’t explain the malnutrition, though, or the frighteningly deep imprint of human teeth on his wrist, or the fading scald-marks on his face and body. And nor are they quite sure why Tomás slept for so long. Marcus, who saw how Tomás dropped after the Rances, how he went for a nap before dinner and texted Marcus at 9pm the next evening saying _I just woke up is that normal??_ doesn’t voice his thoughts.

Camila is less frustrated than Tomás’ doctors. “Doesn’t matter how you got here,” she says briskly, as she takes Tomás’ blood pressure. Marcus hovers protectively at the side of his bed like a lanky and foul-smelling guardian angel. “You’re awake now.”

Tomás looks to Marcus and smiles. “Yes,” he says. “Hear that? I’m all better.”

“That is not what I said,” Camila says, ripping open the Velcro cuff on his wrist with a neat, effective gesture. Tomás winces, Marcus tenses — and Tomás narrows his eyes a little. Marcus knows that look; it’s a warning. It means _put your claws away_. Marcus swallows, rubs his own arm.

“When can he leave?” he asks. Camila shrugs.

“Any time, technically,” she replies. “But probably it won’t be recommended for at least another day or two. Okay, anything you need before I go, Tomás?”

“I’m fine,” Tomás tells her, with his most winning smile. She grins back, tells them both she’ll see them soon, and then she’s out the door. The clack of her sensible shoes fades as she heads down the corridor.

Tomás rearranges himself, sitting up more; immediately, Marcus falls over himself to help, fluffing up pillows and tucking the blankets around him. Tomás grumbles and pushes his hands away; “Stop it, stop, I’m fine, I am not a _child_ , Marcus. Well, you heard what she said.”

“Yeah. Two days and you’re out.”

Tomás shakes his head — too vigorously. He grimaces and looks dizzy and rubs his forehead. “She said I could go any time. Come on. I want to help you with the clean-up. I know we destroyed the nest, but there will be outliers. Now is the time to get them, while they’re weak and confused — what?” Marcus is staring at him. He doesn’t know what’s on his face but he’s never been good at hiding his emotions, so probably he looks like Tomás has just taken a hammer to his heart. “What?”

Marcus drops down into the chair by the bed. Maybe he manages to make it look like his knees haven’t given out. He hopes so. “You want to go back in,” he says, his voice thick, “you think I’ll let you — no, no, Tomás, _no_.”

“Marcus —”

“You’re staying here,” Marcus hissing, leaning in so their faces are close, grabbing the back of Tomás’ neck; “you are staying here until you’re okay to be discharged, and then you are coming with me to the convent, and you’re — we — we’re going to rest, Tomás. You need to rest.”

“I need to work—”

“Please,” says Marcus, voice breaking. “Tomás, please. Please, let me keep you safe.”

Tomás’ face contorts. “That’s not what God wants,” he says.

 

* * *

 

When Marcus comes back to the convent that afternoon, Mouse’s car is gone and she is missing. For a few seconds he panics, yells her name, goes tearing through the corridors; then he runs smack into Mother Julietta, who is short and squat and, from the feel of her, mostly made of bricks. He swears and rubs his arm.

“Language,” she says, and holds out her hands. She’s holding a box and an envelope. “It’s alright. She left while you were out. She asked me to give you this.”

The box contains a phone. A fancy young-person phone, the sort that Tomás used to have before burners became necessary. It’s new. Marcus doesn’t know where Mouse got the money for it. There’s a sticky note on the box. Mouse’s cramped, jaggy handwriting says _Marcus — I’m off on a work trip. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. xx_

The envelope is addressed to Tomás. It’s not sealed. Marcus opens it, and is totally unsurprised to find that there are two pieces of paper within. Written on one is _For Marcus Keane, Snooping Bastard_. He opens it up.

 

> _Hello old love. I’m not going to apologise for vanishing, neither of us really like protracted goodbyes. Anyway, I’ll be in touch, so it’s not a big thing, really._
> 
> _Don’t read the letter for Tomás, please. I’m serious. It’s stuff he needs to know, about what it’s like after you’re possessed. About some of the mistakes I made, some pain that he might be able to avoid. It’s none of your business. Let him have some privacy._
> 
> _Look after yourself. Look after each other. God loves you very much, and so does Tomás, and I think you’re alright I suppose. I’m sorry I shot you in the head. Lord, I’m so bad at this letter stuff!_
> 
> _Well, anyway, I’m going to go clear up this mess. I’m excited. God is in me. Feels pretty good. Maybe now I see why you’ve always been such an arrogant shit._
> 
> _Mouse._

He reads it three times over before very carefully, reverently, placing it in the back of his Bible.

Then, after a torturous second of temptation, he seals the envelope, leaving the letter for Tomás untouched within.

 

* * *

 

Tomás leaves the hospital the next day. Marcus tries to help him, but their injuries are stupidly incompatible: it’s Tomás’ right leg that’s in a cast, and Marcus’ left ear that’s still mostly deaf, so if Marcus wraps an arm around him and supports him on his right side, he can’t hear a thing he’s saying. It’s like a bloody Laurel and Hardy sketch except even less funny.

Finally they manage to get into the truck, and Marcus — who has found a local rock station that’s genuinely and surprisingly good — turns the radio up loud. Tomás lowers the volume a few notches. Marcus turns it back up, points at his ear. His good ear. _Can’t hear a thing_ , he mouths, shaking his head, eyes wide and innocent.

“That’s not how that works,” Tomás tells him sternly, but then Marcus catches him smiling out of the window.

The music excuses them from conversation for most of the drive to the convent. But then just as they’re pulling up into the driveway, Tomás says, “I think we should go South. When the demon was in my head I could feel some of the others. They’re depleted, but they’re not gone. If I — if I go back down, I think I can track them. Mouse and I were working on that.”

Marcus grinds his teeth together and parks the car. Gravel crunches beneath the tires. The radio shuts off. “We’re not having this discussion,” he says, and gets out. Tomás is getting out too, holding onto the car for support.

“We have to,” he snaps, as Marcus grabs his crutch from the back and hands it to him. “This is what we _do_ , Marcus.”

“Not me,” Marcus says, “not anymore. I came back as a special favour — for you, for Mouse, for Bennett. I am never going near a demon again. But you know what?” He grabs Tomás’ shoulder. “I fucked up, last time I tried to retire. I thought I could do it without you. I’m not making that mistake again. No, this time, we are _both_ out.”

“You don’t get to make that decision for me,” Tomás tells him.

“Well, clearly someone has to. Because the decisions you make on your own are _shit_.” He slams the car door shut and tries to move around Tomás, but Tomás checks the motion and squares up to him. Marcus laughs, a hard and hurting sound. “What the fuck are you going to do, Tomás, break a bone at me?”

“Language,” says Mother Julietta from the convent door. Tomás and Marcus pull away from each other, guilty as teenagers caught necking, a comparison that occurs to Marcus in a wash of hysterical amusement and piercing shame. “Would you come in and stop making a scene?”

Neither of them have the energy to resist. She shepherds them in and sits them down with cups of chamomile tea, and makes insistent and stern small talk until the tension is not so much defused as suffocated by pleasantries. Then she says, “Marcus, I believe the young lady left something for Father Tomás?” She never calls Mouse Mouse. She thinks it’s childish and silly.

Tomás sits up straighter. “What?” he says. “Mouse has left?”

“Oh,” Marcus says. “Yeah. I forgot to tell you.”

“Marcus, Mouse and I worked together for months, we — you forgot to tell me she left?”

“You only just noticed she wasn’t here.”

“I thought she’d — I thought — she didn’t come to see me. She didn’t say goodbye.”

Marcus gets up to go and reclaim the letter from his room. On his way out, he touches Tomás’ shoulder. “Well, she’s like that,” he says, not looking around. “She left a message for you. I haven’t read it. Stay there, I’ll get it.”

“Wait,” Tomás says. “I’m coming with you, wait.” So Marcus slows, lets Tomás catch up.

He’s clumsy with the crutch, and already visibly frustrated. Marcus’ room is on the second floor and the stairs are horrible. Marcus tries to tell him to wait below and let Marcus deal with it, but only once: Tomás gives him such a poisonous look after the first time that he doesn’t dare repeat himself.

Finally they get to Marcus’ room. Tomás sits down on the bed hard with a grunt of pained exhaustion. Marcus turns away so Tomás can’t see his expression and rummages in his Bible. When he gives him the letter, Tomás frowns at the sealed envelope. “Did you steam it?” he asks.

“I told you,” Marcus says. “I didn’t read it.”

“Oh.”

“Tomás…uh. I’m sorry. For…” He raises a hand. Drops it. Tomás looks up, and then shakes his head tiredly.

“No,” he says. “ _I’m_ sorry.”

“I know you want to be out there. I know. But I am so — I’m so scared, Tomás.” He kneels down, takes Tomás’ hand. The envelope lies unopened in Tomás’ lap. Tomás touches his face, rubs his good ear, and suddenly Marcus thinks of the False Tomás doing exactly that and he shudders. Puts his forehead to Tomás’ knee.

“Marcus?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Are you okay?”

“Uh,” Marcus says groggily, “no? Why would I be?” And they both laugh, damply and a bit hysterically, and Tomás rubs his knuckles ever so gently against Marcus’ temple, and this time the touch doesn’t make Marcus afraid.

“I don’t know what I can do, if not this,” Tomás admits, his voice very small. Marcus grips his hand tight and looks up.

“No,” he says. “Don’t say that. Don’t go down that route. Trust me, it’s no good.”

After a moment, Tomás nods. He doesn’t look like he’s taken it on board. He lets go of Marcus’ hand, and Marcus stands — and he wonders, does Tomás remember how the demon chose to tempt him?

He can’t. If he could remember how the demon pushed his lips against Marcus’, how Marcus kissed back, then he wouldn’t look so gently in Marcus’ direction. He wouldn’t smile at him like he does, he wouldn’t be so happy to hold his hand, to touch him in the curious way they touch each other — like friends don’t, like lovers do, except they’re not and never will be lovers.

As he thinks this, Tomás opens the envelope. He reads the first few lines, draws a breath. Marcus frowns. “What’s wrong?” he says, urgent and fretful. Tomás shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing. Marcus — can I — will you let me read this alone? Please?”

Marcus nods, slow and reluctant. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, of course.”

 

* * *

 

Marcus’ phone rings while he’s going downstairs. The new phone, the one Mouse left him. He jumps, thrown by the unfamiliar ringtone; then he glowers at the touch screen, and finally accepts the call.  

“Wasn’t expecting this so soon,” he says, grumbling and trying not to worry — but Mouse doesn’t do social calls.

“Well,” says Bennett’s voice on the other end, “I’ve had a few days off to recover.”

“Bennett?” Marcus says, and immediately feels stupid. Of course, after not-quite-two weeks of recovering from a possession, Bennett is already back to passive-aggressive phone calls and whatever else his job involves.

“Expecting someone else?”

“Yeah, Mouse. She gave you this number? She’s trying to ruin my life.”

“It was the least she could do, considering she bought the phone with money from my office.”

“That — that makes sense, yeah,” Marcus sighs, and rubs his face. After a second’s consideration, he sits down right there in the middle of the staircase, and leans his elbows on his knees. If a nun trips over him, well, he’ll burn that bridge when he comes to it. “So she’s on your payroll now, is she.”

“She’s only the second person to ever exorcise an integrated demon. The Church may be purged, but there are still pockets of intense demonic activity out there. And there will always be possessions. She’s a very useful asset.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says bitterly. “I’m sure she’s very valuable.”

“She’s good at what she does. And a logistical nightmare. Fortunately you’ve given me many years of experience of dealing with that sort of thing.”

Marcus doesn’t know what to say about that, so he sniffs and grimaces and says, “Yeah, well. Speaking of. What are you going to do with us?”

Bennett’s quiet for a few moments. Then he says, “Actually, that’s what I was calling to speak to you about. I have a proposition you might find interesting.”

“God, you always manage to make things sound so bloody sinister. Like you’re a Bond villain. _I have a proposition_.”

“Marcus.”

“I’m listening,” Marcus mutters, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eyes, “I’m listening.” And he does, staying silent while Bennett explains his idea, at first because he’s too tired to needle at him, and then because he’s speechless.

“What do you think?” Bennett prompts.

Marcus swallows. “Are you — are you serious?”

Bennett says, “Well. You did save my life. There is a debt to be paid. And more importantly, there _is_ a right thing to do in this situation.” He pauses. “We’ve been short on those recently, it feels like. Every choice seems to have been between bad and worse.”

“But you’re _serious_.”

“Yes. Now, will you please give the phone to Tomás so I can start filling out the necessary paperwork?”

 

* * *

 

The room smells of Marcus, especially the pillows, and it’s the pillows that Tomás slumps against as he rubs his eyes, and reads the letter again.

> _Tomás, I am so sorry. No one deserves possession. You think I’m saying this because it’s what I’m meant to say — well, I’m not. I’m saying it because it’s what no one said to me._
> 
> _After I woke up all I wanted to do was the work. I threw myself into researching. Made connections with some other unorthodox exorcists — women, atheists, all the people the Mother Church says can’t do it. I was never a good exorcist, but I was great back-up, and I handled things when they went wrong. I worked myself to the bone, Tomás. And you know, I think I helped people. I really think I did. I just almost killed myself doing it._
> 
> _I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think I was trying to save myself. I reasoned it out like this: okay, if I save enough souls, maybe that’ll balance it all out. Maybe I can wipe my slate clean that way. It took me so bloody long to work out that I didn’t need to atone for getting possessed._
> 
> _You’ve done your bit. God has taken your cup away, so stop chasing it. Tell Marcus to stop chasing his, too. God does not want you to die. God loves you. Marcus loves you._
> 
> _Of course, there are still demons out here. But don’t you fuss about that. I’ve decided to stop playing back-up and strike out on a solo career. I’ve already got a first gig set up. I’ll send you a postcard when it’s done._
> 
> _Look after him, Tomás, or it won’t just be God you have to reckon with. It will be me._
> 
> _Mouse._

He folds the letter and he presses his face into the pillows. Marcus smells of church incense and something warm and animal. A little bit grimy, a little bit sweaty. He shouldn’t like it. There are a lot of things Tomás shouldn’t like.

 _Marcus loves you_ , Mouse had written, and she’d meant it in the sense that one brother in Christ loves another; freely, honestly, cleanly. Still, reading it has set Tomás’ insides to squirming, has lit him up with terrible hope — hope that is so much harder to deal with than despair, because it’s so laughably futile. Tomás saw how Marcus looked when the creature wearing Tomás’ face kissed him sound on the lips. He remembers the scene in weird, flat, dream-colours. He remembers how Marcus’ face twisted in horror, and how they had stumbled apart.

He wishes Mouse hadn’t left. She’s brusque and hard but they travelled together for months, and Tomás cares for her. He thinks she cares for him, too. It’s hard to tell. Anyway, right now every conversation with Marcus seems to end up in tears or shouting or both: Mouse, at least, has no patience for any of that.

He wants to brandish the letter in her face and stab his finger at that line and shout, _What did you mean?_ She’d give him a straight answer, at least. She wouldn’t spare his feelings.

There’s a creaking outside the door: familiar footsteps. Tomás sits up quick and Marcus comes in. He’s holding a phone, and he says, “Sorry, I know you wanted — it’s Bennett, he needs to speak to you. It’s pretty urgent.”

Fear flickers in Tomás’ chest, but with it comes determination. Relief. Good: he wants to work. He wants to put this behind him.

But something on Marcus’ face gives him pause. He frowns at him, trying to communicate his uncertainty. Marcus is grinning. He looks proud and hopeful and happy. He doesn’t look like Bennett has just told him that he needs to get back to work.

Tomás takes the phone, keeping his eyes locked warily on Marcus. “Hello?”

Bennett says, “Hello, Father Tomás. How would you like to be a parish priest again?”

Tomás’ breath catches. Marcus is sitting down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, squeezing him in. “What,” Tomás says, blank and bereft, and he feels Marcus go still. “What are you talking about?”

“Father Bell of St Joan’s in Cheboygan County, Michigan, passed away very suddenly three days ago. We need to find a replacement. It’s a large, rural, sparsely-populated parish, but there’s a small town with an unlikely name — _Wolverine_ — and a Catholic school which of course has an excellent working relationship with the parish church. You’d be busy.”

“What?”

“Currently, some limited Masses are being said by a priest from the neighbouring parish. He can stay on for a little while, so you’d have a few weeks there to settle in and convalesce before assuming your full duties. As for Marcus — well, that’s your choice. But you’d need an assistant. He is technically qualified.” Bennett sighs. “On paper, anyway. The joys of teaching him to photocopy, I leave to you.”

Tomás’ breath is hurting in his throat. Bennett’s voice is rich and indulgent; he sounds smug, like he’s offering some amazing prize. “Stop it,” Tomás manages to say, though it comes out choked. Marcus immediately pulls his arm away from him, shifts to look at him better, tries to grab his hand — Tomás slaps his fingers away and turns so that he can’t see Marcus’ expression. He peels his lips back from his teeth and says, “Bennett. I don’t want this. I don’t need your pity—”

“I don’t do pity, Father Tomás. But I do pay my debts.”

“Well, find some other way! You don’t get to put me out to pasture. I don’t want — I can do more, I am an _exorcist_ and—”

“Tomás,” Marcus is saying, panic in his voice, “Tomás, Tomás, calm down—”

“And I am as capable as I ever was,” Tomás hisses down the phone, and hangs up, and drops the phone to the bed. He has turned away from Marcus but he can feel him at his shoulder. “You knew about this.”

“I thought you’d want it.”

“I want — God help me, I want to be useful,” Tomás says. Marcus’ low and aching sigh floods warmth across the back of Tomás’ neck — and that’s what really spurs the tears. He drops his face to his hands. Marcus grabs his shoulders, and then suddenly gathers him up into his arms, holds him from behind: he struggles for a second, and then he goes limp and lets Marcus hug him as tension drains from him.

When his breathing has slowed and he’s wiping his face, Marcus says, “You are more than a weapon,” right in his ear, in that throaty, thick voice that means he’s begging Tomás to believe him. His arm is tight about Tomás’ chest, his fingers in his shirt. Tomás reaches up and touches the back of his hand. “You can be other kinds of useful. You can do other things.”

“You want to go.”

“It’s your decision.”

“My decisions are shit,” Tomás reminds him bitterly. Marcus hisses in his breath.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he says. “It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t true. I’m sorry.”

“You want to go. Have you thought about this, Marcus? Seriously? You want to freeze in a too-cold parish house and be my assistant while I, I write homilies for the four people that turn up to Mass?”

“ _Assistant_?”

Tomás laughs, hangs his head, and then finally shifts around — just a little, just enough that he can see Marcus’ face. “That was the role Bennett suggested for you.”

“That bastard.”

“ _Do_ you want to go?” Tomás asks him. Marcus swallows.

“Yeah,” he says, “of course I do.”

And Tomás nods. “Okay,” he says. “Then I’ll think about it.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know that.”

“You know, if we go, I’ll get bored in ten seconds,” Marcus warns.

“So will I.”

“I’ll start a fight with a parishioner.”

“If you do, I will lock you out of the parish house for a night.”

“Like a misbehaving dog?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds effective,” Marcus admits. “But look, seriously. If we don’t like it, we’ll skip town and change our names and give Bennett the worst headache he’s ever had trying to find us.” He’s doing his weepy smile, his sun-bursting-through-the-clouds smile, and Tomás is absolutely powerless to stop his own lips from curling up.

“Okay,” he says, “okay, I’m holding you to that. _If_ we go.”

Marcus eyes are creased with smiling. He says, “Anything you want.” And Tomás thinks that it’s fine that Marcus only loves him as a brother in Christ. He’ll learn to be happy with that.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, Bennett is at the convent door. Tomás takes him in with aggravated disbelief. The crutch Tomás got from the hospital is made of grey metal and slightly grimy white plastic; Bennett, however, has a dark wooden cane with a shiny brass handle. He’s walking slowly and with a limp, but it just makes him seem even more stately. Tomás doesn’t understand how he does it.

“So,” Bennett says, once they’re all settled in the parlour, once Marcus is done fussing over Tomás’ leg and coffee has been served and Tomás has shot Marcus a look which means _sit down, now, stop picking things off the mantelpiece!_ “You said you’d given more thought to my suggestion.”

“You didn’t have to come here in person,” Marcus says. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say I wish you bloody well hadn’t.” He’s stretched sideways across an entire sofa, while Tomás and Bennet both perch in armchairs. His jumper has ridden up a little, exposing a little of his pale stomach, scattered with fine and near-colourless hair. Tomás shifts unhappily and looks back to Bennett.

“With respect, Marcus,” Bennett says, evincing none, “this conversation barely concerns you. The parish is being offered to Tomás.”

“I’m surprised to hear this is in your purview,” Tomás says, quiet and with one eyebrow raised. He carefully ignores the muffled snort of laughter from the sofa. Bennett shrugs.

“It isn’t,” he says, “but as I said: I pay my debts.”

Tomás has been thinking about it. He’s been thinking about it pretty much non-stop. He’s looked up the church, the parish; he’s read about the former priest. Father Leonard Bell’s obituary describes him as ‘witty, compassionate, devoted to the community’. The picture shows an older man with a bright smile and a slightly impish look in his dark eyes. It doesn’t seem like the obituary is being facetious; there are almost fifty comments on it, and all of them sing his praises. Some of them include little anecdotes: the time when Father Bell supported a grieving family through a miscarriage, his antics at the charity karaoke night, how he’d encouraged a shy child to play Mary in the nativity scene.

Small things, for which gratitude comes after death and rarely before.

Tomás swallows. “I don’t know,” he says, “if I can do what you’re asking of me, really. I’m not sure I can be that kind of man again. A…community person. A community _leader_. It’s a lot. It’s very different.”

From the sofa, Marcus says, his voice soft and faithful, “Well, I’d follow you,” and Tomás flushes, shoots him a look that he means to be chiding, but it mustn’t come off that way, because Marcus just looks back all guileless and insistent, his eyebrows up.

“It’s Father Tomás’ choice, Marcus,” Bennett says, his voice stern.

“He would go with me,” Tomás says, looking at Bennett. “It’s his choice too.”

“Perhaps. But he’s the freeloader in this equation.”

“Hey!” Marcus protests. Both Tomás and Bennett ignore him. Tomás looks down at his hands.

It’s a six-hour drive from Cheboygan to Chicago. That’s too much to ask Olivia to make, but it’s a trip he could manage — not _often_ , parish priests don’t exactly get a great deal of free time, but _often enough_. He could go and see her, see Luis. Probably she’ll be furious at him for not speaking to her for so long, but if he knows his sister, she’ll tell him so while she hugs him long and hard.

And Marcus may have been joking when he suggested that, if push came to shove, they could just skip town and go off the grid — but he’d been serious too. Tomás looks over to him and he sees that clear as day. If they spend a month in the parish of St Joan’s, and then with no warning Tomás wakes up Marcus in the middle of the night and says _I’m done, I can’t do this anymore, we’re going_ , Marcus wouldn’t even ask why before grabbing the car keys and heading out with him into the dark and the unknown.

They’re done being apart from each other, Tomás realises suddenly. That’s what it is — that’s the certainty he feels when he looks at Marcus.

He smiles. Marcus blinks, and then grins, and sits up slowly. He looks like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.

Tomás turns to Bennett and says, “I’ll take it. _We’ll_ take it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Don’t randomly kiss a nurse bc they tell you the love of your life is alive. Marcus gets away with it in this but please let nurses do their jobs okay
> 
> 2\. On Michigan geography: I’m not an American and I chose Michigan bc Sufjan Stevens sings about it. There is a village called Wolverine in real world Michigan but I’m imagining this Wolverine as a slightly larger town, and playing fast and loose with geographical constraints. I picked Wolverine bc it’s a fun name and Logan (2017) is a great movie
> 
> 3\. These two are fuckin idiots I can’t believe they both think the other one just wants to be Heterosexual Life Partners
> 
> 4\. I’m sorry and yes they will eventually fuck


	2. Chapter 2

“How are you feeling?” Marcus asks for the fourth time. Tomás pinches the bridge of his nose, shoots him an old-fashioned look. “Alright, alright. Sorry.”

“Stop pacing. You’re making this more tense than it needs to be.”

Marcus grunts.

“Marcus. Sit down.”

Finally, he slumps into the chair next to Tomás and looks pained. He bounces his knee and taps his fingers; most likely he doesn’t realise he’s doing it, so Tomás decides not to comment on it. Let him fidget. Really, if Marcus is forced to constrain his twitchy, anxious energy even further than he already is, then he might just explode.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Bennett offered them St Joan’s, and they’re sitting in the hall outside the office of the Right Reverend Ellis Morehouse, the bishop of the diocese within which the parish is located. The residence is grand and stuffy and cold, and it smells of career Catholicism. Incense, cleaning solution, flowers on the end-tables tended to by invisible hands: bishops do not arrange their own flowers. It’s a soothing, hypnotic, tempting smell.

He swallows. Beside him, Marcus says — abruptly, like he’s been holding it in for too long and the words are bursting out of him — “God, he’s in been in there for bloody ages!”

Tomás nudges him irritably, and says, “Shh, they’ll hear —” and then the door opens, right when they’re squabbling and elbowing each other like schoolboys. Tomás flushes right up to his ears, grabs his crutch and heaves himself to his feet. He hates the paraphernalia of injury and how it makes people look at him; the cast on his nose has been removed, which he’s glad for, but the boot on his right leg remains, cumbersome and horrible. The worst thing is the sympathy it prompts. He can feel how Marcus twitches to help him, but they’ve had this discussion: _you aren’t helping, you’re making me feel weak, you make me look weak, please don’t_. So Marcus refrains, though he radiates nervous displeasure so strongly Tomás can feel it like heat on the back of his neck.

Bennett stands in the doorway, and the bishop stands beside him: he’s tall and broad, built like a brick shithouse Marcus would probably say. Tomás doesn’t know when he started borrowing phrases from Marcus.

“Father Tomás Ortega,” Bennett says by way of introduction, making a wonderfully concise and indicative gesture, “and Marcus Keane; his Excellency, the Right Reverend Ellis Morehouse —”

“Come on in,” says Morehouse. He grabs Tomás’ extended hand with both of his — massive, thick-knuckled, and he grips like hell. Tomás smiles hard so as not to wince and squeezes back as aggressively as he can. He must do something right, because Morehouse booms a laugh before letting go and perpetrating his murderous handshake upon Marcus. “Come in, come in, the both of you. Please, no need to stand on ceremony. Come!”

Tomás feels a spike of alarm — he knows perfectly well that when a bishop says there’s no need to stand on ceremony, it still doesn’t mean you can put your feet on the chairs, but whether _Marcus_ knows that —

“Lovely to meet you,” Marcus says, cheery as anything.

Tomás takes a breath, and reminds himself to have more faith.

Bennett claims a seat slightly to the side of the room; apparently he’s here to mediate, or so his position suggests. Tomás and Marcus sit side by side opposite the bishop, facing him across the desk. For a vertiginous moment Tomás is reminded of the young couples who sometimes used to come to him: _Father, can you advise us, we’re thinking of getting married_. He’d always felt so tongue-tied and cheap when faced with those queries.

“So,” Morehouse says, “firstly, let me say — I am so _glad_ to see a young priest. Feels like such a rarity just now, especially around here! And with your credentials, I have no problem believing that you’ll do a wonderful job in St Joan’s, Father Ortega. It’ll be very different from your last parish, of course; more rural, less _diverse_.” Whiter, Tomás translates, keeping his smile carefully plastered in place. He has a very clear picture, now, of how St Anthony’s must appear in Ellis Morehouse’s mind. “But the community is a very compassionate one, a very generous one, and of course St Joan’s Catholic High is a wonderful asset.”

“I’m very excited to meet with the staff there. And the students.”

“And I’m sure they feel the same about you. Now, Father Bennett has explained to me that you were seconded to the Vatican for some months, as part of a project under the Congregation for the Clergy. Please — this isn’t an interview. Truth be told, the way numbers are, we were glad to find anyone to fill the role, much less a rising star like you.” Tomás swallows and smiles even harder. “So, don’t take this as an interview question; really I’m just curious. Tell me, how was your time there?”

Tomás looks to Bennett. They’ve discussed this. He has the paperwork to back him up. He nods, and begins: “Well, at first, of course, I was very…startled, very honoured. Very humbled. The project itself, increasing the numbers of young men entering the priesthood, is very close to my heart…”

He talks. He barely knows what he’s saying, but he knows that it all sounds good. A little sickened, he sits back and listens to himself lie. A self-deprecating chuckle here, a shy boast here, a mention of having been lucky enough to see His Holiness say Mass: Bishop Morehouse laps it up eagerly, his smiles creasing his face up.

Marcus fidgets by his side. Tomás finishes up, and looks appropriately proud and appropriately hesitant. “You are a very accomplished man,” Morehouse says, his eyes sparkling, “very accomplished.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says, “and he can sing, too.” It’s the first time he’s spoken since sitting down. Tomás shoots him a sharp look, but Morehouse is laughing.

“Yes,” he says. “Mr Keane. I’m sorry; I was just going to move the conversation in your direction.”

“That’s alright,” Marcus says, putting his elbows on the desk. Tomás inhales and silently begs God — what? He doesn’t even know if he wants this. Maybe he should be asking God to make Marcus’ behaviour so ridiculous that the Bishop kicks them both out. “I’m a bit of a shrinking violet, me.”

“Father Bennett has explained…” And here, Morehouse hesitates for the first time, his eyes slipping to Bennett and then back to Marcus. “I understand you were laicized?”

“Yep,” says Marcus.

“And that you wish to assist Father Ortega?”

“Mm. It’s kind of like a — _community service_ sort of —”

Tomás inhales, and interrupts: “Your Excellency, Marcus and I are close friends. Brothers in Christ. And I know it is not usual. But I cannot in good faith serve this community without his support, both for his sake and mine. He…” He’s going off script. His heart is up in his throat. Morehouse is looking at him with canny interest.

Bennett jumps in, clearly with the hopes of salvaging the conversation: “As discussed, of course, my office with make up any shortfall to the parish’s funds which results from Mr Keane being lodged in the parish house; we can also contribute towards a stipend —” But Morehouse waves a hand, looks to Tomás.

“You weren’t done,” he prompts, eyebrows up, and Tomás swallows hard.

“Well,” he says. “You see, before he was laicized, Marcus was a trained exorcist.” He thinks he can hear Bennett’s weary exhale. “And he helped me when I — well, when I was not myself. I suffered a possession, Your Excellency. I hope this does not make me less qualified in your eyes. Through Marcus, God saved me. I owe them both my life.” He swallows. “And with this appointment I — I have a way to express to him my gratitude. Your Excellency, I understand if this is too unusual. But it is my condition. Marcus must assist me, must be lodged in the parish house with me, or I _cannot_ be the priest of St Joan’s.”

The room is very quiet. Morehouse leans back and smiles indulgently. “I’d already agreed to it,” he says, “in preliminary talks with Father Bennett.”

“Oh,” says Tomás, feeling dizzy with embarrassment.

“But how thrilling to hear the story from you! I’d love to discuss it more.”

“I’m…it’s not the happiest story,” Tomás croaks.

“Of course, of course. Forgive me.”

“So,” Marcus says, his voice oddly muted, “I’m in, am I?”

Morehouse extends his hand to Marcus with a grin. “Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the parish,” he says, and Tomás exhales slowly, disbelieving, his face still hot with blushing.

“There was the other matter,” Bennett says impassively from the side of the room. Tomás thinks _what now, God? Where are you taking me?_

But it’s nothing to do with Tomás, it turns out. Morehouse says, “Ah,” and releases Marcus’ hand, but keeps his eyes trained on him. “Yes. Apparently, Mr Keane, you’re excommunicated.”

Marcus goes rigid in the seat next to Tomás. Tomás looks at him nervously. “Yeah,” he bites out at last, still muted and stiff, “yeah, that happened.”

“Well,” Morehouse says, leaning back. “Why don’t you call on me at two o’clock tomorrow, and we’ll sort that out?”

Marcus leans back, blinking rapidly. “Uh,” he says. “Um. _Si quis, suadente diabolo?_ I — you know what I was excommunicated for, right? That’s — doesn’t the Pope have to —”

Bennett mutters, “Oh, Marcus, come on, you have _never_ cared about canon law before —”

“Well, maybe I’m turning over a new leaf,” Marcus snaps back, voice suddenly loud and genuinely angry, “maybe I want to do this _right_ —”

Morehouse raises a hand. “It can be delegated to a bishop,” he says comfortably, “in circumstances where individuals cannot reasonably be expected to receive absolution directly from His Holiness. Which, given His schedule, is most circumstances. Tomorrow? 2pm?”

“Yeah,” Marcus says faintly, “yeah, I — okay.”

Morehouse stands. He smiles at them both, ignoring Bennett for the time being: “So wonderful to meet you two. I’ll be in touch: the announcement of the appointment will be made within the week. Now, I recommend you go to the parish house and start settling in. Once the news is out you’ll have visitors.”

Tomás stands so hurriedly he nearly knocks over his chair. His heart is racing. It’s happening, he realises: it’s actually happening. After all of this, he’s going back to being a parish priest. His palms are tacky with sweat and his stomach is churning. “Thank you,” he says, even though he’s terrified, “thank you, Your Excellency. Thank you.”

Bennett leaves with them, murmuring a much more elegant thank you; Marcus stays uncharacteristically silent. They’re in the driveway before Bennett mutters, “What is the point with you two, honestly.”

“I’m sorry?” Tomás says.

“We had everything worked out. I told you I would sort out everything. Where that sob-story came from, Tomás, I have no idea, but it didn’t help you to blend in.”

“Leave him alone, Bennett,” Marcus says, tired and distant, as he circles around to the driver’s side. “Just back off for once, yeah?”

And Bennett does: just folds himself into the back seat and ignores them both in favour of his phone. Tomás looks between them, nonplussed — but, well. Small miracles, he supposes; who is he to complain? He gets into the truck, and Marcus puts the radio on too loud, and he stares out at the broad, eerie snowplains outside, and he wonders what he’s done. For a second he panics, and then he looks to Marcus, and Marcus catches his eye for a just a moment. Tomás inhales and reminds himself: _we can stop whenever we like. But let’s try this for now_.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Marcus says, looking out of the windscreen again.

“I don’t know,” Tomás says. “I’m...nervous.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says. “Me too. It’s a nice change from being scared.”

But Tomás doesn’t mean it like that. He shakes his head, and he doesn’t push it.

 

* * *

 

“This really is the middle of nowhere,” Marcus says.

“We’d have gotten there faster if you hadn’t missed that turning,” Bennett remarks from the back seat.

Tomás, who has been dozing in the passenger seat, keeps his eyes closed. Perhaps if he plays dead, their bickering will pass over him.

“I wouldn’t have missed the turning if there were decent roads. Or signs. Or landmarks.”

“I was telling you to take it.”

“You were shouting in my bad ear.”

There’s no chance he’s going to fall back asleep, Tomás realises. He cracks his eyes open and grimaces. His neck hurts from sleeping upright and his mouth tastes like vinegar and dust. “It’s so good to see you two getting on,” he mutters as he rolls his neck. His vertebrae crackle and pop, and Marcus shoots him a wicked grin.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, sleeping beauty,” he says. “You missed nothing, except someone on the radio called in to say they’d seen Elvis.”

Tomás says, very seriously, “Perhaps we should investigate. That seems like a disturbance of the natural order.”

“And if nothing else, we could see Elvis.”

“If nothing else.”

“I hate Elvis. His attempt at 'Hound Dog' is piss-weak, it’s an _insult_ to compare it to Big Mama Thornton’s original. But he gets all the credit.”

“I know,” Tomás says, indulgent and patient, “you talk about that a lot.” He twists around in his seat to look at Bennett. “Are we close?”

“Very,” Bennett says, looking up from his phone and nodding through the windscreen. “Next right.”

“Now if someone said they’d seen Big Mama Thornton, I’d be turning this car around and going off to find her.”

“Next right,” Tomás says, louder, “did you hear?”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard,” Marcus says, shooting him an irritable look, “no need to treat me like I’m ancient, Tomás.”

“I’m treating you like you got shot in the head about four weeks ago and still haven’t been to hospital.”

“Five. Five weeks. I’m fine. Sister Elaine stitched me up. She’s a doctor.”

“I spoke to her and she said you should go to a specialist.”

“Well, doctors can be wrong, can’t they. Anyway, I didn’t get shot in the head, I got clipped.”

“In the head.”

“ _Alongside_ the head — woah.”

“ _Huh_.”

St Joan’s is not a pretty church, not in the usual sense: it’s a blocky, squat, 1970s building made of bland brown stone. What surprises Tomás about it is the size. For a second he thinks it’s enormous; then he realises that he’s confusing the neighbouring parish house with the church itself. It’s another big, low building. Emphasis on big. He says, “That’s the — that’s our house? Who else lives there?”

“No one,” Bennett says boredly from the back. Tomás and Marcus share a panicked look.

“We’re gonna rattle around in there,” Marcus warns. “That’s too big for us.”

“Adopt some dogs,” Bennett suggests.

“Did Father Bell live there all alone?” Tomás says, and then wishes he hadn’t said it out loud, because he hears how he sounds — how shocked, and sad, and how afraid. He doesn’t want to think of himself getting old in that big, imposing house. Marcus looks over at him.

“You won’t,” he offers. Tomás braves a smile, but he can’t stop looking at the big, imposing, ugly house sitting there in the middle of the snow.

Their truck isn’t the only vehicle parked outside the church. A massive silver people-carrier and a lovingly-restored but nonetheless ancient Alfa Romeo sit vacant in the lot. Tomás looks at Marcus as he hands him his crutch, nods towards the cars, and wordlessly they agree on the assessment: one soccer mom, one midlife crisis-haver. Probably both visitors are paying their respects in the church itself. Tomás really doesn’t want to meet any of his new parishioners just now, so he’s relieved when Marcus says, “Let’s check out the house first, eh?”

The house doesn’t directly adjoin the church, but sits at a crooked angle to it. As they tramp around the side, Tomás sees an overgrown garden. Marcus says, “We could do something with that.”

“Once, I killed a cactus.”

“ _I_ could do something with that, then.”

Bennett hands Tomás the keys as they get to the porch, indicating that he should do the honours. Tomás swallows. It feels — official, binding. The house isn’t any nicer up close. He raises the key to the lock.

And then the door bursts open, and two people in the middle of a muttered, terse argument all but tumble out. One of them, a tiny but sharp-elbowed woman, smacks straight into Tomás, practically kicking his bad leg out from under him. The world contracts into dark red pain, and the next thing he’s aware of is Marcus is at his side, half-holding him up and practically snarling: “ _Watch it_ —”

“Oh my God,” says the woman, sweeping a hand through her dandelion-puff of curly bottle-blonde hair, “oh my God, I am so sorry, sir — Father,” she amends, catching sight of the collar. Then her big brown eyes go wide and she says, “Father!” and points at Tomás, then looks triumphantly at the man behind her — a big, hulking, middle-aged gentleman with an impressive auburn moustache. “This is the new Father! Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I — and you have a broken leg and I probably screwed it up more — oh my God. Oh my _gosh_ , I mean.”

“That’s okay,” Tomás chokes out, as the pain recedes to a mere agonising throb and he manages to stand up straight, albeit only by clinging to his crutch and to Marcus’ arm, “that’s...fine?”

“Wait,” says the woman, peering over Tomás’ shoulder, “you’re a Father too. Which of you —”

“I’m here to help Father Ortega and Mr Keane settle in,” Bennett says. “For my sins.”

“Oh, this is a nightmare. Sorry, it’s good to meet you all, but I am in absolute _hell_ trying to organise everything around here. The bishop said he would call,” the woman says darkly, in a tone which suggests this is not Bishop Morehouse’s first transgression against her. “He said he would call to let us know when you were coming, but he didn’t, and we thought you got lost—” Then she looks panicked, pulls a phone from the pocket of her jeans. “Oh, for — I had it on silent.”

“You had it on silent?” the man behind her says in desperation. “Why would you —”

“For Mass, earlier, when Father Petersen was here!”

“I guess,” he says, “I guess that makes sense.”

Then all five look at each other in silence for a moment, all clearly stuck for words — except Bennett, who projects his usual untouchable air of vague, polite distaste. He’s the one to break the silence, sighing and introducing himself, which sets off a wave of introductions. The woman who is  _in absolute hell_ is called Elisha Cobey, and the mustachioed giant introduces himself as Jeremiah Ross.

“I’m a permanent deacon,” he says, shaking Tomás’ hand once Tomás extricates himself from Marcus, “live about a half hour west, so we’re close neighbours.”

Tomás says, “Oh. Wow. Sorry, I — I grew up in cities. This is an adjustment for me. It’s great to meet you, deacon.”

“You too, Father. I’m gonna have to run off, I need to get my girls from dance practice.” He glances at Elisha, and adds dryly, “If that’s _permitted_.”

Elisha rolls her eyes. “Deacon Ross was about to leave. I told him he should wait for you a little longer. His girls don’t finish dance practice for another hour and a half.”

“They appreciate an audience,” Ross grumbles.

“Please,” says Tomás, “don’t keep them waiting on my account. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon.”

Ross tramps off. “Come on in, Fathers,” Marisha says, enfolding Marcus in that; no one challenges it, not even Bennett, and so finally they all get inside the corridor, where Tomás’ eyebrows go right up.

It’s orange. And not ugly, crumbly, motel orange: vibrant, bright, interior-design magazine orange. Stylish orange. On a small metal endtable sits a bright green retro dial phone, a stack of sticky notes and a framed postcard picture of a black Virgin and Child against a colourful background. He and Marcus share a look of surprise; then Marcus shrugs, and Elisha leads their merry band into the kitchen — which is bright turquoise. Mismatched plates clash on the shelves, an enormous collection of mugs hang from hooks, and on the far wall is an enormous pinboard, covered in pictures. Tomás recognises Father Bell’s face in a few of them: with parishioners, friends, in newspaper cut-outs. In one photo, Elisha and Father Bell are beaming and holding a giant novelty check. In another, she is much younger, and holding a swaddled baby in her arms.

While Elisha goes through the tea cupboard and Bennett takes a seat at the big dark wood table, Marcus and Tomás look at each other. “I like it,” Marcus says. “Good colours.”

“Surely the parish didn’t pay for this?” Tomás says, incredulous. Parish coffers do not pay for bright colours, or mug collections, or retro phones: his stomach churns, and for a moment he wonders if he’s walked into some bizarre interior-design corruption scandal.

Elisha looks up from where she’s rummaging in the cupboards. “Oh,” she says, and smiles, “I forget, it’s a bit overwhelming first time around, isn’t it? No, this was Father Bell’s hobby. He painted it all himself. And all the furniture is up-cycled, thrifted, um...picked out of the trash, some of it, but not much and it’s all clean and refitted, I promise.”

“Father Bell sounds like a man after my own heart,” Marcus says happily. Tomás just looks about in amazement. Even Bennett has looked up from whatever important business he’s dealing with on his phone in order to raise an eyebrow at the turquoise tiles, though Tomás can’t work out whether it’s a positive eyebrow-raise or not.

This doesn’t look, he has to admit, like a house occupied by a lonely man.

Elisha says, “Dammit — sorry Fathers — I forgot to get more herbal tea. No mint, Father Bell always hated mint, so I forgot to get mint, so stupid of me. And we’re out of vanilla... Okay, we have strawberry, and chamomile, and Earl Grey, and — ”

“I’m so sorry,” Tomás says, exhausted, “I don’t quite understand — what’s your role here?”

Elisha turns looking startled, and says, “Oh. The bishop didn’t — ?” Hurt flashes in her eyes. “I’m the Parish Administrator. And the liaison to St Joan’s Catholic High. And I sort of do everything that would fall through the cracks otherwise...”

She trails off. She’s holding a box of Earl Grey in her hands and she looks a little lost. Tomás realises he’s just snapped at her — and also that she has just lost a friend, a spiritual confidante. She’s probably grieving; in fact, she probably feels just as conflicted about his presence here and he does about hers. After a second, she finds her voice again, and says, “Right now, that means getting things in order. I don’t normally do the house, but...someone had to clean up and sort things out. So I did.”

“Sorry,” Tomás says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s been a long day.”

Bennett stands up abruptly. “Excuse me,” he says, “I have to make an urgent phone call.” Tomás watches him slip out, incredulous at the brazen and transparent lengths he’ll go to to avoid being party to an uncomfortable conversation.

Marcus whistles, as if to say _well isn’t everyone high-strung today_ , then walks over and takes the box of Earl Grey from Elisha’s hands. “Sounds like it’s been a long day for you too,” he says. “Go on and sit down, I’ll make us some tea, eh? You and Father Tomás get acquainted. Promise he’s nicer when he relaxes a bit.”

Tomás looks abashed, but he can’t help but be grateful for Marcus’ ersatz charm. When Elisha sits, Marcus glances over her head, meets Tomás’ eyes. There’s a question written in the gently concerned lines of his face: _you okay?_ Tomás inclines his head at him, just a little, and Marcus smiles. The tiny reassurance settles him ever so slightly.

“Again, I’m sorry,” he says again, and smiles at Elisha across the table. In the background, Marcus starts to hum under his breath. “Thank you for being here to welcome us. Please, tell me everything you do here. I want to know.”

“Everything?” Elisha says, eyebrows raised.

“Yes.”

“How long have you got?”

Marcus is prowling about the kitchen while he waits for the kettle to boil: poking through cupboards, investigating the pinboard, still humming.  _Ain’t nothing but a hound dog_. Tuneless. Probably he’s had it stuck in his head since the mention of Elvis. He’s rolled his old denim shirt up to his elbows and he already looks almost unbearably at-home. Tomás glances back to Elisha.

“Well,” he says, with a tentative smile, “I’m in this for the long haul.”

 

* * *

 

Elisha, it transpires, really does do everything: she handles the paperwork, answers the phone, serves Communion, fundraises, manages schedules, organises altar servers, hears and catalogues every piece of parish gossip, compiles and prints the Mass leaflets, bulk-orders the wafers and wine. She’s also, apparently, secretary of the local amateur dramatics society, which comes out when she notices the time and scrambles up from her seat, breaking off an anecdote about what Deacon Ross’ sister’s dog did at the charity raffle. “Oh, hell, sorry Fathers, I’ve got to get going to rehearsal, we’re doing _The Revenger’s Tragedy_ and I’ve got a crate of fake blood in the back of my car that the whole company’s relying on—”

Marcus’ eyes positively gleam. Tomás laughs at him. “When are you performing?” he asks, knowing immediately that Marcus wants to go; he’s personally less keen on the idea of community theatre, but it’ll be worth it for Marcus elbowing him in the ribs and reviewing the performances in an embarrassingly loud whisper.

Bennett, who has returned from his urgent phone call, looks between them with a mix of amusement and irritation.

“Two weeks time,” Elisha says, grabbing her jacket. “It’ll coincide with your first Mass, Father Ortega. I’ll see if I can comp you some tickets — to celebrate. It was so good to meet you, all three of you. I’ll pop ‘round tomorrow to talk shop?”

“Sounds great,” Tomás says, “I’ll walk you out.”

They get to the door, and Elisha shakes his hand again, then hesitates, and says, “I’m sorry, Father, it’s probably rude — Marcus, he’s not — ?” She taps at her own throat, indicating the absence of a collar. Tomás shakes his head.

“It’s not rude,” he says. “He was laicized. He’s sort of — he’s a friend, a...collaborator. He helps me.”

“I’m basically his emotional support dog,” comes Marcus’ voice from the corridor, and both Tomás and Elisha jump. Elisha bursts out laughing.

“No!” she says.

“Yep,” Marcus says happily. “Woof. It was good to meet you, Mrs Cobey.”

“Ms, actually,” Elisha says, “or even better, just Elisha.”

“Alright then, just Elisha. Good luck with the fake blood.”

She strolls off into the dusk. Tomás leans out of the door. “Huh,” he says. The massive people carrier is gone; Elisha is opening up the Alfa Romeo. “That was not the car I expected her to have.”

“Really? I clocked that in ten seconds. I like her.” Arms folded, Marcus nudges him. “Keep her on your side, yeah? She’s probably the best ally you can have right now.”

“It’s parish politics, Marcus, not a battleground,” Tomás reminds him. Down the driveway and well out of earshot, Elisha flicks her lights on and revs her engines.

“Same thing, innit?”

“How would you know?” Tomás asks, gently teasing, but it falls flat. Marcus’ smile is strained and miserable. Concerned, Tomás nudges their shoulders together. “Hey. Earth to Marcus.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Long day.”

“You were quiet earlier. After we got out of the bishop’s office.”

“Oh, that. I’m allergic to bishops.”

“Marcus.”

Marcus exhales through his nose and squeezes his arms tighter across his chest. “It wasn’t me,” he says, sudden and stark. Tomás blinks at him.

“What?”

“It wasn’t me that exorcised you.” Marcus’ voice is rough and ragged at the edges and he’s not meeting Tomás’ eyes — staring up, instead. “I couldn’t. I was — I couldn’t. It was Mouse.” His voice churns with a strange mix of awe and jealousy, and something else beneath it: something really, genuinely hurting. “Mouse took the lead. Mouse did things — I’ve never seen that stuff before. Whatever she was doing, it worked. I stood back and read from my Bible cos every time I got close to you, it — it didn’t end well. The demon got to me, or I forgot the words, or — every time. I didn’t save your life, Tomás. You don’t owe me anything.”

Tomás stares at him. “Marcus,” he says.

“I’m sorry.”

“Marcus,” he snaps, reaching for the back of Marcus’ neck, making him look at him, “Marcus, don’t be ridiculous.”

“What?”

“That stuff I was saying in the bishop’s office, that’s not — I’m not here with you because I owe you for the exorcism.” He squeezes, digs his fingertips into the prickly-short hair at the back of Marcus’ neck. His mouth is dry. “And — Marcus — maybe Mouse did the heavy lifting, I don’t know. I don’t remember. But when I was in there, when it had me, it wasn’t Mouse’s voice I heard telling me I could fight it. It wasn’t Mouse I came home for.”

Marcus’ face wavers like the moon in a pool of water. He looks stricken. “Oh,” he says.

Tomás suddenly realises that what he has just said. His eyes widen, and he tries to clarify, to cover his tracks; “I mean — what I mean is —”

“Gentlemen,” Bennett says from the corridor behind them, and they spring apart. Tomás coughs, rubs his hands on his jeans, and Marcus tries to lean casually against the doorframe. He succeeds only in looking shifty. “I was planning on staying, but there have been developments.”

Tomás looks up, cold fear dripping down the back of his neck. “Developments?” he says.

“Nothing you need to be concerned about,” Bennett says. When both of them narrow their eyes at him he sighs, and says, “Mouse has caused a minor diplomatic incident.”

“ _Yes_!” Marcus says, all triumph, and he slaps Tomás hard enough on the back that it vibrates through his busted ribs and makes him groan in pain: “Oh, sorry, sorry…”

“A word, Marcus?” Bennett asks.

Marcus, inexplicably, looks to Tomás at first, as if he’s checking for permission. Tomás blinks, and nods wearily. Then he says, “Ah — could you talk in the kitchen? I want to use the landline.” Marcus frowns at him, and then gets it, and gives him one of his terrible, broad, beautiful smiles. Just to really rub it in, he squeezes Tomás’ arm.

“Good luck,” he says, and then to Bennett, he adds, “can you tell Mouse I’m proud of her?”

“No.”

“I saved your life.”

“No.”

Their bickering fades as they retreat to the kitchen. Bennett closes the door. Tomás is left standing alone in the bright orange corridor, looking at the ridiculous phone. He has to take a few minutes to screw his courage to the sticking place, and then he seizes the handset and dials the familiar number.

It rings four times, and then Olivia picks up. “Hello?” she says. “Hi, who is this?”

He hasn’t heard her voice in nearly four months. And he can’t think of anything to say but, “Hi. Olivia, hi. It’s me.”

Olivia is silent for three seconds, and then she makes a sound — a sharp, cut-off sob which pierces Tomás’ guilty heart. He squeezes his eyes shut. Her voice is thick with anger and joy when she says his name, “ _Tomás_ —”

“Yes,” he says, “yes, I’m here, and I am _so sorry_ …”

 

* * *

 

In the kitchen, Bennett slides his phone into his pocket and gives Marcus a sideways look. “Do you have any advice?”

“On what?”

“Dealing with Mouse.”

Marcus laughs. “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“I suppose not.”

“That all you wanted, then?” Marcus says, and sits on the kitchen table. He sees Bennett go to reprimand him — and then he sees him repress the urge. Marcus doesn’t understand why until it hits him: this is _his_ kitchen table, and he can sit on it all he likes if he wants to.

“No, actually,” Bennett says, putting his hands on the table and leaning on it. He drops his head down. He looks exhausted. While he’s not looking, Marcus takes the opportunity to surreptitiously check him over, but of course he’s perfectly stitched into his expensive suit — it covers everywhere that bruises and stitches might still linger. “You’ll meet with Bishop Morehouse tomorrow?”

Marcus narrows his eyes, jiggles his knee, plays with the St Benedict’s medal on his wrist. “Yeah,” he says, deeply suspicious. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“He’ll absolve your excommunication. He also wants to talk about something else.”

“What?”

“He’s worried about some children in the parish.”

Marcus swallows. “Sounds like he should talk to the parish priest,” he says, voice carefully blank, “not his hanger-on. His freeloader.”

“As far as he knows, the parish priest was never an exorcist,” Bennett says. Marcus’ mouth contorts.

“You bastard,” he mutters viciously, staring right at Bennett, who is looking determinedly down at the table. “You complete and utter piece of shit. ‘Here you go, you two, have a nice little parish out the way of everything, go rest, go recuperate from the fucking _ordeals_ I’ve put you through, and while you’re at it, can you just check this kid isn’t possessed’? You _fucker_!”

“I’m only asking you to confirm,” Bennett says, straightening up: his guard back up, his face blank and impenetrable as a mask.

Marcus bares his teeth, shoves a finger into Bennett’s chest. “And what then, huh? You got many people to spare just now?” He has to make an effort to lower his voice so Tomás won’t hear. If Tomás hears he’ll go tearing off into the dark to save every soul but his own. He’ll throw himself back down into hell for one more victory. He will break himself apart. “Got lots of exorcists in fucking Cheboygan County ready to jump into the fray?”

“Children,” Bennett says. “Multiple. What will you do, Marcus, if the bishop’s suspicions are correct? Will you walk away? Leave them to their fate?”

Marcus can’t answer that. He lowers his hand. He is shaking with anger. “Get out of my house,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. 'Si quis, suadente diabolo' literally means 'If anyone, prompted by the devil', and is used as a shorthand to refer to the canon laws which prohibit violence against the clergy, on pain of excommunication.  
> 2\. [Big Mama Thornton's version of Hound Dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoHDrzw-RPg).
> 
> ummm please don't expect twice-weekly updates to be a regular thing lol. next update will prrrrobably be the middle/end of next week.


	3. Chapter 3

Snarling, “Get out of my house,” feels good, feels powerful, feels just as cruel as Marcus wants to be in that moment. Unfortunately, the reality of the matter sinks in a few seconds later: they’re not exactly in a convenient place, and while Marcus would be happy to more or less drop-kick Bennett out into the snow, that might raise questions from Tomás.

So instead, Bennett says, “I’ve already called for a car,” and Marcus growls and storms out of the kitchen.

It takes an hour and half for a sleek black car to pull up outside. Until then, Bennett sits in the kitchen and Marcus prowls the halls. He’s afraid Bennett will try to talk to Tomás, who _cannot_ find out that his perfect new parish might be ridden with demons. But Tomás is on the phone, is sitting on the floor next to the end table; he’s laughing and sniffling, talking quick and urgent in a mix of Spanish and English, and Marcus doesn’t think Bennett could get his attention if he tried.

Marcus hesitates on the stairs, looking at him. He makes for a completely bizarre sight: a pretty young priest, collar tight about his neck and one trouser leg rolled up over the boot cast on his leg, sprawled on the floor of a very garish hallway with funny old-fashioned phone cradled at his ear. Tomás’ face is enraptured, his eyes sparkling, happy tears spiking his long dark eyelashes together. As Marcus watches, he sniffs and goes quiet: from the staccato beat of the faint, tinny noise on the other end of the phone, Olivia is telling him in no uncertain terms how angry she is with him. But Tomás can’t stop grinning. He doesn’t even notice Marcus staring.

He looks like he’s at home, Marcus realises, and he looks happier than Marcus has seen him in a while. Quickly, he turns away. _Don’t start salivating_ , he thinks to himself, _just because he’s smiling, you useless old lech._

Bennett goes. Tomás keeps running up the phone bill. In an attempt to calm himself down Marcus stalks the house, running his hands over everything he can find, picking up ornaments, opening drawers. He’s looking for proof of something, though he’s not sure what: evidence of some plot, maybe, or some corruption. But Elisha has done an unsurprisingly thorough job on the house: she’s left no personal artefacts behind apart from the pictures. No letters, no diaries, no illicit stash of condoms. Nothing to indicate any secret life. Marcus wonders where she put them all. There has to be something, after all. Everyone’s got something to hide. He picks up a sequined statue of the Virgin Mary from a bedside table, turns her over in his hands.

Maybe not. Maybe Father Bell was totally and tediously devoted to his parish and his interior design. Maybe he had no inner life whatsoever. Maybe the children the bishop is worried about are just acting out. Maybe Tomás will carry on being happy here. Maybe Marcus can learn to see him smile without feeling the desperate urge to hold his face in his hands, to kiss him unchastely and with fierce, wretched love.

 

* * *

 

“Bye,” Tomás says, laughing, “bye, bye. I love you. Bye. No, really. Sí, lo juro _._ Yes, I mean it. Okay. Okay, I love you. Shut up. Sleep well. Hug Luis for me. I love you both.”

The line clicks and then the dialtone hums in his ear and for a minute he just squeezes his eyes shut and listens to it, and feels the world settle about him as it hasn’t in far too long. He’s so giddy that he tries to get to his feet too quick, stumbles painfully and inelegantly against the endtable. It doesn’t matter. Olivia had woken up Luis even though it was a school night and put him on the phone. He had sounded sleepy and confused: she hadn’t told him who it was before making him take the call. “Hi, Luis,” Tomás had said, and Luis had _yelled_.

Recovering his crutch and replacing the handset in its bizarre lime-green cradle, Tomás rubs his eyes a final time and starts trying to re-orient himself. He feels shaky and scattered: not upset, just overwhelmed. Bennett’s gone, now. He strode out past him with a brief nod for a goodbye, which Tomás returned only distractedly. Marcus — Tomás pauses, listens close, then smiles. The tinny noise of music playing in another room is just detectable. Marcus is upstairs.

He’s exhausted, Tomás realises. Thinking those words, _I’m exhausted_ , makes him feel it; he’s suddenly bowed and bent. He is so, so tired. It takes him even longer than usual to manage the stairs, and he’s glad Marcus isn’t there to watch and try to help. His crutch thumps slow and steady on the fluffy white stair runner.

Marcus is listening to Big Mama Thornton. Still grumpy about Elvis, then. Tomás hesitates at the top of the stairs and then veers towards the sound; he knocks at the door, but isn’t surprised when Marcus doesn’t answer, and ventures a peek instead. The sight of the room makes him laugh. Somehow, in the space of a few hours, and despite having approximately five worldly possessions to his name, Marcus has managed to move in. His Bible sits on the desk, and he’s pulled out loose sketches from it: Tomás sees one of himself, two of Mouse, one of Mother Julietta, far more of landscapes and trees and animals. His pencils and charcoals are there too, already in homely disarray. He’s dumped most of his clothes on the floor, pulled some books off the shelves and thrown them on the bed in the apparent anticipation of reading them — and of course, the music fills the room.

Marcus himself is prowling and pacing, still sifting through the shelves, his hips twitching in time to the music — he stops that when he catches Tomás at the door, and scowls at him, but without any real look of complaint. His shirt is open, because given ten seconds in relative privacy and warmth Marcus will immediately start removing various items of clothing: he’s skittish, alley-cattish, complains of strangulation if a shirt so much as closes around his neck. Tomás doesn’t know how he survived nearly four decades in a dog collar. Tomás looks, because it would be strange to avert his eyes. But he doesn’t look too long or too hard. He’d perfected his careless and unworried glances while he and Marcus were on the road together, though back then he hadn’t quite been able to explain to himself why he felt it was important to monitor his gaze.

He’s out of practice. The light catches gold on the fine smattering of fair hair across Marcus’ chest and beneath his belly button. Tomás looks away too late.

“Not right to sneak up on a deaf man,” Marcus tells him, mock-disapproval.

“You’re only half deaf,” Tomás retorts, then knocks the crutch on the floor; “I’m only half sneaky.”

Marcus likes that: barks a laugh and tosses another book onto the bed. “How’s your sister?”

“Furious at me,” Tomás says. Marcus’ eyes crinkle as he grins. “I’m — ” Tomás bites his lip a moment, and then shrugs. “I’m still unsure about this. But I’ve missed her.”

“You mentioned her cooking a few times.”

“Are you looking for an invite?”

“Absolutely,” Marcus says, shameless. He picks up another book and then waves it at Tomás. “Look at this. Father Bell read and — hang on —” He’s flicking through it, gives a happy snort. “Yep. _Annotated_ the Silmarillion. Weird guy, old Leonard. Think I’d have liked him.”

“What’s the Silmarillion?”

“Lord of the Rings, but more. Might dip into it.”

“You’re expecting a lot of free time?” Tomás says, a little sly. Marcus grins at him.

“Well, Elisha and Deacon Ross seem to have this all locked down, don’t they?”

“Once they stop arguing, maybe. I’m going to need you too.”

“What for? Unless Sunday Mass is really crowded and you need a bouncer to enforce a one-in-one-out policy, I dunno what good I’m gonna be out here.”

Tomás frowns at him and decides to put the brakes on this joke. Marcus is laughing, but he’s being serious, too, and Tomás doesn’t want him to be. “You really don’t see it?”

Marcus just looks at him, then shrugs. “Not really a parish person, am I.”

“You’re already practically best friends with Elisha Cobey. You stopped me from snapping at her. Smoothed everything over. Marcus, you’re...charming.” Marcus laughs, high and disbelieving. “Or maybe that’s not the word. I don’t know. People like you.”

“People — I can make people laugh,” Marcus allows. “And I can get under their skin. That’s about it. _You’re_ the hotshot young priest.”

“You…” Tomás hesitates, biting his lip. He got too intense earlier; he has to think carefully about how to phrase this, lest he slide once more into a too-desperate register. “I lied in the bishop’s office, but most of it was based on truth. I really couldn’t do this without you, Marcus.”

But Marcus just gives him a strange look, a troubled mix of fondness and scepticism which makes him seem so vulnerable and uncertain that Tomás has to look down. He shakes his head and clears his throat and says, “Well, I — sorry, I really just came to say goodnight.”

“I’ll turn the music down,” Marcus says. “Sweet dreams, eh? Oh, master bedroom’s across the hall. Figured you’d take it. Your parish, after all.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s incredibly pink,” Marcus says. “So, you know, letting you have it wasn’t much of a kindness.” Tomás smiles, shakes his head and leaves.

The moment he’s away from Marcus all his aches kick in: his ribs radiate sick cold pain right through him, and even those parts of him that aren’t broken hurt from the strain of walking with the crutch and sleeping in the car. He struggles to the room and drops down onto the bed. Inexplicably, the pink walls — a light colour which glances off and softens the dark wooden furniture — somehow work, at least as far as Tomás can tell. He has never known much about decorating except that he is not good at it; he’s never hung a picture that didn’t go crooked or bought a duvet cover that didn’t clash alarmingly with the wallpaper. And yes, once, he killed a cactus.

He stares at the ceiling. Everything hurts and he’s exhausted but his thoughts are chasing their own tails in his head, tumbling over each other. Faces surface: Marcus, Olivia, Elisha, his abuela, the ghost of Leonard Bell. Marcus again.

He needs to be more careful. Before, he didn’t understand why he felt the urge to look at Marcus, or why he knew — instinctively — that he shouldn’t look too long. Now he knows why, and the knowing makes it so much worse. He’s afraid it’s written on him, visible in the goosebumps that prickle on his arms: he’s afraid that he flushes, that his pupils go wide, that he gets tongue-tied as a dumbstruck teen. He’s afraid that Marcus can, _will_ split him open like a book and read what’s within. Every scrawled and reckless thought, like: _I would like to bite that tattoo on his shoulder_ , or _I want to see just how his face screws up as I touch him_ , or _I want to sear his taste onto my tongue_. Everything _I, I, I_. Everything selfish and wanting and hungry.

Tomás hisses his breath in through his teeth and rolls onto his stomach. It’s a bad idea, he realises immediately. He stretches, pushes his hips down, and grabs for a pillow so that he can bury his face in it. A little cover, a little shelter, a little comfort. He shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t inaugurate his life here by struggling one-handed with his flies, sliding his fingers down through rough curls to grasp his own cock tight and punishingly hard, but that’s exactly what he’s doing. He grunts, hikes his hips up, stops a moment to spit into his palm — he wants this to be rough, he wants this to be ugly, because if he is gentle with himself he will think about all the ways he could be gentle with Marcus, and that will ruin him.  

So he tugs himself with hard and barely slick strokes, clenches his teeth so he doesn’t groan or worse say something, and thinks of Marcus moving beneath him, Marcus’ teeth in his shoulder and his hands rough and scrabbling at his back. Marcus speechless and gasping and twisting. Then, though he tries to stop the thought in its tracks, he’s overpowered by idea of kissing him so delicately, all across his cheeks and his neck and his chest, kisses so sweet and barely-there that Marcus shakes from too-much-not-enough.

Wanting to love him like that feels like a worse betrayal than wanting to fuck him. But Tomás’ hips jump forwards and he wrings out an orgasm. It’s all clench and too little pleasure and it fades too soon, leaves him sticky and tired and ashamed.

 

* * *

 

Tomás is strong: integrated, he is even stronger. It takes both Mouse and Marcus to hold him down as he thrashes in the bathwater which Marcus has just blessed. Mouse has her hands on his jaw and head, is holding him under: she is muttering the words of Baptism, though they fade in lopsided to Marcus, who still can’t hear anything on his left. “You called your child Tomás to this cleansing water…”

Tomás kicks, and Marcus swears, scrambles over the side to sit on his legs, hold him down with his body. He’s up to his hips in freezing water. He joins in: “By the mystery of this consecrated water, lead him to a new and spiritual birth—”

Tomás breaks Mouse’s hold, and Mouse screams — in rage, it sounds like, not fear — then goes flying back, knocks her head off the sink. She crumples to the floor. There’s a red smear along the porcelain basin.

The holy water fizzes and steams on the False Tomás’ skin as he sits up and grabs the front of Marcus’ shirt with both hands, and for a few seconds his eyes are normal, mono-pupilled, gentle. “This doesn’t have to be so difficult,” he insists, yanking Marcus to him so they are chest to chest. “This doesn’t have to hurt. I don’t want to hurt you.” On the floor, Mouse twitches and groans.

Tomás nudges their noses together, sweet and silly: the tip of his nose is very cold. His shy smile has split into a grin. “That’s not true,” Marcus croaks, but he’s so tired, and even he can hear the pathetic uncertainty in his voice.

“Shhh,” Tomás urges him. One of his hands is cradling Marcus’ face; the other has fallen to Marcus’ thigh. “Shh shh shh, you’re talking yourself out of it. You should have more faith, Marcus. Trust me, please: I want you, I’ve always wanted you.” He’s warm. Something is buzzing in Marcus’ ears. And he pulls Marcus down atop him, hits the stacked pillows with a soft and muted thump, grins up at him. Golden morning light streams through the windows, catches glints of sweat caught in the dark whorls of hair across his chest. Marcus makes a strangled sound of defeat and desire and drops his forehead to Tomás’, whose hand roves across the back of Marcus’ jeans, then settles and _squeezes_. “I have _always_ wanted you.”

He rolls them quick and deft, so that Marcus sinks down into the pillows; then Tomás’ stubble is grazing his cheek, his neck, his shoulders, and Marcus pushes a foot along Tomás’ bare leg, and he is so full of love and need that he can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe.

His eyes open and through the water and the pain he sees the False Tomás, not naked and not half way down Marcus’ body in some hotel room they could never afford, but fully-dressed and drenched and holding Marcus down.

He sees that for one strung-out second, his lungs bursting-full with holy water, and he thinks: _fine. If it be Your will._

Then Mouse grabs the False Tomás from behind, loops her arms around his neck and tries to yank him back. The pressure on Marcus’ shoulders goes — but it is replaced by Tomás’ hand over his mouth, shoving him down, grinding the back of his skull into the ceramic beneath. Without air, his body is panicking. He feels himself thrash and twist. His lungs feel full of thumbtacks. His fingers scrabble uselessly at the smooth sides of the bath. And then he wrenches his head sideways, dislodges his grip and sinks his teeth right into the tendons of Tomás’ wrist.

Blood unfurls in the water. Tomás recoils. Suddenly, nothing is keeping Marcus under. Gasping and twitching, he sits up and vomits over the side. The False Tomás is still kneeling between his legs. Mouse is yelling something, there’s the awful noise of splashing and choking, but he can’t make anything out. He hangs over the side and sobs in air he doesn’t want.

He throws up again and once the rushing in his ears has subsided he realises that it’s quiet. Really quiet, not half-deaf quiet. He dares to look around. The False Tomás is wheezing, his eyes rolled back in his head so that only slivers of white show beneath flickering eyelashes. Mouse is behind him, an arm locked about his throat as she presses a green scapular to his forehead. Where it touches him, his skin sizzles noisily like bacon fat in a pan. He shudders and spasms in her arms.

There’s blood all down her face, streaking her nose and dripping from her chin. The water in the bath is pink with it. As Marcus stares at her she bares her teeth and says, “Get out,” in a voice which thrums with tight fury. The False Tomás gurgles, twitches weakly. She hisses in its ear, “ _The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters_ ,” and he slumps and shudders in her arms, saliva dripping down his chin.

“Don’t hurt him,” Marcus begs, “Mouse, Mouse, please don’t hurt him.”

“Get out before I hurt _you_. You’re a liability, Marcus. Get out and let me save him.”

 

* * *

 

Marcus wakes with a start and thinks for a groggy, fuzzy moment that he’s overslept his appointment with absolution. That he’s going to live in a state of excommunication for the rest of his life because he forgot to set an alarm. He groans and scrabbles at the bedside table for his phone. He has the time to make it to the bishop’s residence, but only if he skips breakfast. Lunch, at this point, he supposes.

As he’s picking up the clothes he discarded on the floor yesterday, he hesitates for a moment. He wants to tell Tomás about the bishop’s suspicions. He doesn’t want to lie to him, to force distance between them when they’ve already been apart from each other too long.

But that, like so much of what Marcus wants, is impractical at best, selfish at worst. So he shakes the thought loose. There’s no point lingering on what’s impossible.

He’s still buttoning his shirt up when he gets to the kitchen, and is half way through saying, “Tomás, we got any orange juice,” when he looks up and finds that it’s not just Tomás sitting at the table. He’s sitting with Elisha, and a man Marcus has not yet been introduced to, though from the collar and the look of frazzled overwork on his face, he guesses this is Father Petersen from the neighbouring parish. Tomás is peering critically at Marcus over his reading glasses. His ancient laptop is out on the table, next to stacks of paper and a couple of mass leaflets. For a second Marcus just stands in the doorway, startled to be faced with relative strangers and not sure why he didn’t hear the sound of conversation. Then he remembers. For a moment he hears the gunshot again, the sound so loud it’s no sound at all. He blinks rapidly, swallows. Maybe Tomás is right, maybe he should get his hearing looked at.

“Mr Keane,” Elisha says happily, raising her coffee mug at him. He rouses himself: shakes his head clear and gives her a wink. “Did you sleep well?”

“Best night’s sleep I’ve had in a while, actually. Thought we were on first name terms, Elisha?”

“Sorry, Marcus. We are.”

“Good to hear it. Hey, Father Ortega,” Marcus says, coming into the kitchen properly and grabbing Tomás’ shoulder, “why didn’t you come in and wake me up?”

“I tried. You threw a pillow at me.”

“I don’t remember that.”

Across the table, Father Petersen is giving Marcus a highly sceptical look. Marcus has always reacted to looks like that as a bull reacts to a red cape. He just can’t help it; he grins big and broad and leans over Tomás to extend his hand. Tomás ducks his head and gives an obligatory huff of vague annoyance. Marcus knows the laughter it’s covering for. He can feel it in the way Tomás’ shoulders shake, and how he takes a gulp of coffee to hide his smile. “You must be the Father who’s kindly taken over some Masses here?”

“Father Andrew Petersen. Yes.” He’s one of the most colourless people Marcus has ever seen, and he’s squinting at Marcus with an expression of deep suspicion. His fingers are weightlessly frail. Marcus is careful not to squeeze too hard. Wouldn’t do to snap him.

“Lovely to meet you. My name’s Marcus. I’m Father Tomás’ valet.”

“He’s my assistant, and I’m sorry about him,” Tomás says, finally nudging Marcus off. His smile is quivering at the edges of his mouth. Still, he’s very solemn when he adds, “He’s somewhat infirm.”

“We didn’t agree on assistant,” Marcus remarks, then finally lets up, backing away with a quick pat to Tomás’ shoulder. “I’ve got to dash. Tomás, you fine being stranded here for a bit? Need to take the truck to talk to the bishop.” He’s probably being too cheery. Maybe it’s obvious he’s hiding something. But Tomás just waves him on, nods contentedly.

“Of course. Ah — good luck.” Marcus, a little surprised by that, shoots him a curious look; Tomás just smiles sideways and crooked at him in a way that makes his heart speed up a little. “I’m glad he’s doing this for you,” he explains, earnest and simple. Marcus’ mouth runs dry.

Piping up to break the moment — and God, Marcus is glad for it — Elisha says, “Send His Excellency my regards,” in a strangely pointed way. Marcus looks at her with open curiosity, and she gives him an innocent smile above the top of her coffee. Gossip there, then: he decides to make it his business to find out her story as soon as possible. He’s not sure what the bad feeling between them is, but he instinctively favours her account over that of the bishop’s. “Oh, Marcus, your shirt buttons are done up all wrong.”

“Whoops.”

“You know, I should be going too. My daughter is in the car,” she adds, her voice low and a little irritated as she ushers him out of the door. “Goodbye, Fathers — Father Ortega, I’ll be in touch about readers for your first Mass, mm? And I’ll keep brainstorming about the welcome party, then tomorrow we’ll make the event on Facebook, it’ll be very official. Father Petersen, always a pleasure.”

She’s a veritable sheepdog; Marcus is powerless to resist being steered away from the kitchen. Once they’re in the corridor, he quickly rearranges his shirt. “Your daughter?”

“Yeah. Dany. She refused to come in,” says Elisha, rubbing her forehead. “She’s only with me because I’m going into town next. She wants to get coffee. Says it’s better from a coffee shop than at home.”

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen.”

Marcus tuts sympathetically as he grabs his coat from one of the hooks on the wall. “Tough age,” he says. He’s met enough troubled parents: _tough age_ is always true, whether a child is three or thirty.

They leave, and Marcus locks the door behind them. It’s a novelty: he’s not used to having keys. These days most motels have swipe cards. As he kicks snow off the front step and then starts stamping towards the truck, a question occurs to him: “What day is it?”

“Tuesday,” Elisha says, giving him an amused look.

“So your daughter’s not in school?”

“Oh. She got suspended.” A little despairingly, Elisha shrugs. “For two weeks. She was smoking in the toilets.”

“Ah. Rookie error. That’s where they expect you to smoke.”

“She wanted to get caught,” Elisha says, looking tired. “She doesn’t like the school. Doesn’t want to be there. I’d send her somewhere else, I would, but the closest alternatives are in Inverness, and I can’t make that drive daily, and I just...you know, she blames me. And I don’t blame her.”

“Hey,” Marcus says. He stops, comes to face her, puts both hands on her shoulders. “Hey. I’d bet money you’re doing the best you can.”

Elisha smiles at him, a bit wan. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all intense on you.”

“I’ve got one of those faces.”

“Seems like it.”

Marcus peers over at the Alfa Romeo. Sitting in the back like a taxi passenger is a teenager with her head ducked down and massive headphones over her ears. He can’t quite tell through the sheen on the window, but it looks like her hair is dyed green or blue. “Well. Tell her she’s always welcome. She doesn’t have to listen to parish business. We’ve got a telly, she can be teenage and moody in the living room instead of in the car if she wants.”

Elisha laughs. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll tell her that.” And she pats one of his hands, a sharp sort of gesture — affectionate but chiding. He gets the hint, drops his hands from her shoulders and steps back. “Good luck with the bishop, seriously.”

“You don’t like him.”

“He’s a very holy man.”

Marcus whistles. “You _really_ don’t like him.”

“No secret,” Elisha says, but that’s all the admission she’s willing to give right now, clearly: she’s already striding off. She hitches her bag higher on her shoulder and waves without looking around. “See you soon, Marcus! Stay out of trouble!”

 

* * *

 

“It was a good decision to bring Mr Keane onboard,” says Petersen, adding two — no, _three_ spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee. Tomás fights a reflex urge to say _you’ll rot your teeth_ : Petersen is not Marcus. Tomás settles for peering at him dubiously over his reading glasses while he’s absorbed in stirring.

“Marcus is very capable,” he says, which is true. He feels like he may be missing some nuance, though; leans a little on the inflection, prodding Petersen to say more.

Petersen smiles in a way that indicates he has decided to take pity on him. “It was a good decision,” he repeats. A little slower, a little louder, a little more like he thinks Tomás is dim. Tomás twitches, exhales testily through his nose; Petersen doesn’t seem to notice. “I mean that — Miss Cobey works very hard, of course. But her employment has raised some eyebrows.”

Parish politics. Tomás smiles, pleased to find a way to needle Petersen back while he gathers some information on the local terrain. “Elisha is still employed by the parish,” he says, bright and innocent and watching carefully for Petersen’s reaction. “Marcus is not replacing her.”

Petersen doesn’t disappoint. He freezes, visibly dismayed for a few moments.“I see.”

“What eyebrows has she raised?” Tomás asks. After a second, he prompts, “Yours, Father?”

“I don’t want to gossip.”

“Me neither. I’m asking — between colleagues — for a professional opinion. You must know, being dropped in a new parish…”

Petersen smiles, thin. “Mm. Like being dropped in the middle of a battleground naked.”

Not where Tomás was going to take it. He nods enthusiastically nonetheless, setting his coffee cup down. “I don’t believe you would gossip about a member of the congregation. But I do think that you can help me understand this parish. I’m interested to hear what you have to say.”

It’s laughably easy, far easier than winning over Morehouse was. A concerned frown, a beseeching look, a warm rub of Petersen’s ego: nothing to it. Tomás is ashamed of how naturally it comes, and embarrassed for Petersen when he falls for it, as he inevitably does. “That child of hers,” Petersen says uncomfortably.

Tomás raises his eyebrows invitingly. Petersen gives him a significant look. And Tomás remembers that Elisha insists on _Ms_ , not _Mrs_.

For just a moment, he teeters. Petersen is testing his patience with his snide condescension and clever hinting — his unwillingness to actually _say_ anything like _I think the way you talk makes you sound stupid_ or _I don’t like that Elisha Cobey is unmarried_ no matter how obvious it is that he thinks it. But Petersen is also currently covering for him. He knows this parish better than Tomás does, even if he clearly considers it a poor second to his own. A battleground, Marcus had called parish politics: perhaps he was right. And it would be easy to secure Petersen’s allegiance. All Tomás would have to do is twist his lips just so and say _I see your concern_.

Then he thinks of Olivia and swallows hard, wonders what he’s doing, sitting opposite this prissy, self-righteous antique and choosing his words carefully so as not to offend. Playing politics, begging to be liked. Unctuous and smooth. Maybe this is the legacy of the demon, he thinks, his throat constricting. Maybe he has learned to seduce like the Adversary seduces.

He swallows to get his throat working again. “We are commanded to forgive,” he says, voice hard. “She doesn’t deserve to be flung from the Church.”

Petersen does not look as stung as Tomás would want. He scowls, and says, “Oh, that’s only part of it.” Tomás no longer wants to be having this conversation. He grinds his teeth together. “It’s the child’s father.”

“Oh?” Tomás says, brittle and irritated.

“Well, no one knows who it is. Apart from _her_ , of course. But she has made some particularly wild claims...”

“And what would those be,” Tomás replies, flat and dull. He has already put two and two together. The bishop, obviously. Tale old as time.

But Petersen sighs, rubs his temples and says, “She claims it was a virgin birth.”

Tomás, who has just raised his coffee mug, lowers it before he can take a sip. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Say that again?”

 

* * *

 

“Bonfires,” Marcus says. “Spooky.”

“And tools of the occult.”

“Tarot cards.”

“Yes. And Ouija boards.”

Marcus scrubs his hands down his face and groans loudly without a care for Bishop Morehouse’s scowl.

They’re sitting in the bishop’s private sitting room. Marcus newly absolved and feeling giddy from it. He’s also having a reaction to all the gilt and the antique furniture: it’s making him bolshy and obnoxious. He knows that, but he can’t find it within himself to stop. He sprawls against the arm of the fancy sofa and says, “Your Excellency, kids do this sort of thing. They’ll snap out of it once it’s not cool anymore. In the meantime, some haggard old bastard like me coming and giving them a slap on the wrist’ll do nothing but encourage them.”  
  
But Morehouse isn’t stupid, even if he is old-fashioned: unimpressed by Marcus’ brand of disarming self-deprecation, he stares straight back at him and says, “Sorry to say it, but that sounds like an excellent excuse to do nothing, Mr Keane. You were a clergyman long enough. You know how these things work.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marcus mutters, grimacing, “you scratch my back, I scratch yours.”

“One of the children, Alice Merrick — she’s a newcomer to the group. Previously quiet, reserved, not many friends. Her family are very religious, very devout. She was raised very well. Excellent grades. All that changed three months ago, when she fell in with this group.” _This group_ includes Elisha Cobey’s daughter, of course. But in Marcus’ experience, demons just don’t go for kids like that. Dyed hair, smoking in bathrooms, suspended from school — it’s all too obvious, especially in a community like this. No, a clever demon would latch onto the rising star football player or his homecoming queen girlfriend or Morehouse himself. “And now classmates have reported her speaking in tongues in lessons. Muttering under her breath.”

“What tongues?”

“What?”

“What tongues was she speaking?” Marcus says, raising his voice. “You see, I once got called in because a teenager started teaching himself bloody _Klingon_ and his mum overheard him practising in his room.”

“Marcus,” Morehouse says, “I believe these children are in danger. And I believe you will help them. The question is only whether you’re going to waste much more of my time before you start.”

Marcus exhales dragonishly out of his nose and glares in Morehouse’s direction, but Morehouse’s face is disdainful and nothing more. “Yeah,” he says. “Fine. I’ll do some digging, find out when they next have one of their little bonfire parties.”

“Thank you.”

“Trust me, your Excellency,” Marcus says, getting up. “I’m not doing it for you.”

 

* * *

 

When Petersen goes, it’s getting dark, and Marcus is still not back. None of this is surprising: the days are short just now, and Marcus has a great deal to confess. Still, Tomás catches himself looking twitchily between the window and the clock. When he realises what he’s doing he chastises himself aloud and proceeds to throw himself into work. There’s a lot to be done. But his focus slips: he ends up on Facebook. He deactivated his old profile a year or so ago when he left Chicago. Earlier this morning Elisha started talking about _youth outreach_ and _online media_ , and so with her hovering at his shoulder he had made a new page, unwilling to deal with old friends from seminary sending him confused messages or new parishioners scrolling back to years-old comments on Jessica’s pictures. He had set his place of work as St Joan’s Parish and it had felt a little bit like playing house. Playing make-believe.

He looks up Dany Cobey. At first, the profile picture confuses him, and then he understands. Her latest status update was made three months ago and it reads:

 

> Good News I’m A Woman. My name is Dany (for Danica) and you should use it, also she & her pronouns, see: i’m a woman
> 
> I’m turning fucking commenting off lol

If Tomás’ math is right, she’s sixteen years old. Her profile picture is a selfie: it shows her with short purple hair, a few teenage spots on her jaw and an unfriendly pout on her face. Tomás sighs and clicks away. Most likely, the virgin birth story is an offhand joke taken too seriously, or else a clumsy attempt to deflect attention from Dany’s actual father, whoever he may be. It is almost definitely not a sign that St Joan’s is at the centre of any cosmic battle; there are no angels here and no demons, and Tomás’ work from now on will involve more emails than exorcisms. He wishes he could be glad for it.

A virgin birth. The line between miracles and monsters is thin, Tomás knows that. He also knows that it’s sick, very sick, to hope that Petersen’s narrow-minded superstitions mean something. He’s very sick to hope for that.

He closes the laptop, takes his glasses off. A dull ache thrums behind his eyes. That thought from earlier keeps chiming in his head, bouncing off the insight of his skull: maybe the demon changed him. Worse, maybe it didn’t. Maybe he has always been cunning and prideful and lascivious. Too cold and too hot all at once, and always wanting the wrong things.

Just for a moment, he closes his eyes against his headache, and something looms at him from the dark: a memory, a whisper. The distant splash of water.

He jumps as the front door bangs. Marcus calls, “Tomás? Bishop sends his love! Where are you?”

With a shudder, Tomás collects himself, looking up bleary-eyed. He has to take a few tries, but he manages to call back, “Kitchen,” in a voice which does not sound fevered with misery. Marcus comes in. He has snow melting on his jacket and the tip of his nose is pink with cold. He needs a scarf, and a pair of gloves. He does not need Tomás to kiss him where freezing air has rubbed his skin raw.

Weakly, Tomás smiles. “Hi,” he says, and he thinks he actually manages to sound cheery. Another blessing from the demon, he thinks bitterly: a silver tongue. Was lying so easy before all this? “You look happy.”

But maybe he’s not as good a liar as he thinks. That, or Marcus knows him too well. He frowns down at him, and says, “What’s wrong?”

Tomás swallows, and smiles, and says, “I think I broke something,” deadpan. Marcus laughs, and so does he, looking down. Then his smile stutters, twists, and Marcus’ hand is on his shoulder. “I think, I think…”

“Hey, hey…”

With a jerk, Tomás wrenches away from Marcus’ hand. “Don’t. It’s not — just don’t.”

Marcus is silent for a few minutes, and then he says, “I’m sorry.” It’s quiet and shaken. He doesn’t sound like he’s apologising for a brief touch. Tomás braves a glance at him then shudders and looks away: Marcus looks bereft, the cold flush not gone from his face, the snow now meltwater which drips from his lapels.

“Mouse,” Tomás says, “Mouse told me it wasn’t my fault. But she was possessed. I was integrated. It’s different. I let it in. I became it. It didn’t wear me. It _was_ me.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It doesn’t feel over.”

“Yeah, well. It isn’t,” Marcus says. Tomás starts, looks at him — he feels betrayed, pathetically so. This is not how it’s meant to go. He’s meant to protest his enduring filthiness, Marcus is meant to deny it: neither of them go away convinced, nothing changes. He swallows, shaken. Marcus carries on. “Listen to me. You think this is going to go away over the course of a few weeks? It ain’t. I wish it would. Wish I could take it off your shoulders. But I can’t. It’s gonna hurt for a long time, Tomás.”

Sudden, and savage, Tomás says, “I wish it had happened to someone else. I wish — I hate this. I wish it wasn’t happening to _me_.” He laughs, horrible and bitter, and puts his face in his hands. “And after I wanted to be so _special_.”

“I wish it wasn’t happening to you too. But this is going to get better. You’re not going to feel this way forever.”

But he has always felt this way, Tomás thinks dully. It just took a demon to make him understand that. He sniffs angrily, grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes, shakes his head. “I don’t know if I can love these people,” he says, and he hears anger in his voice and realises that he’s furious. He just can’t say why. “I don’t know if I’m any good at love anymore. Maybe the demon ripped that out.”

“Tomás.” Tomás folds his hands together stares miserably at the table. In the corner of his eye, Marcus crouches down. “Tomás, look at me.” He looks, reluctant. He looks, and remembers with a stab of guilt that he shouldn’t look too long or too lovingly. Marcus’ face is open and gentle and the kind of clean love Mouse described shines through him like he’s transparent. Tomás looks away hurriedly. “There’s nothing in God’s creation that could rip the love out of you,” Marcus says fiercely. “Nothing. I know that. I’ve seen that. I’ve faith in that.”

And Marcus’ faith shields him from death and demons. Marcus’ faith glows around him like holy fire. Marcus’ faith saves, where Tomás’ falters. Tomás inhales, and looks back at him. Marcus’ faith has propped up his own more times than he can count.

He tries a smile. It fits all wrong, it wobbles at the edges, but Marcus beams. “There you are,” he says, and goes to pat Tomás’ knee before he catches himself, snatches his hand away, the movement quick and heartbreaking and — sensible. Good. Tomás steels himself and tries to welcome the space Marcus is giving him. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Tomás mutters. “God, I...I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologise for. Something set this off?”

“Getting possessed.”

Marcus tsks in that way he has that means that he appreciates the joke, but finds it upsetting nonetheless. Tomás doesn’t like that Marcus has a sound for that, or that he is so familiar with it. “I meant something today.”

“Just —” Tomás hesitates. But Petersen’s gossip doesn’t bear repeating and Marcus doesn’t want him to see demons everywhere. Going hunting for horror is something only a traumatised man would do. He doesn’t want Marcus to think of him as broken or irrational. He shakes his head. “No. I don’t know. Settling in.” He looks to Marcus. Marcus looks back at him. Faith burns straight through him. Tomás wants to reach out and bring their foreheads together. Wants to stroke Marcus’ jaw, bury his face in the crook of his neck and inhale hard, fill his lungs up with the smell of him. “Was the bishop — was everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Marcus says. “Yeah. I’m part of the church again.”

Tomás is proud of himself. He reaches out, grips Marcus’ shoulder — a rough, friendly gesture, devoid of desire. It takes effort. “The church is lucky,” he says, and is rewarded with a smile he doesn’t deserve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna put my trans little hands all over everything.
> 
> next chapter is my favourite so far and it will be posted at the end of next week, probably! a teaser: it involves a welcome party


	4. Chapter 4

Tomás’ first Mass starts at ten in the morning. By half eight, the house is already full of people and noise and stress. Deacon Ross, Father Petersen and Tomás retreat to Tomás’ office in order to confer and bicker and make last-minute edits to the homily, while Elisha, with an attitude not unlike a general rallying her troops, briefs altar servers in the living room. Marcus finds himself in the kitchen entertaining Deacon Ross’ twin girls, Mackenzie and Skylar. They’re a pair of tiny seven year olds in matching dresses, Skylar in blue and Mackenzie in yellow, and they want to know what Jesus’ favourite colour was.

“Green,” Marcus says immediately. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter and shovelling cornflakes into his mouth. “ ‘S why you’ll see Father Ortega wearing green in a bit, when Mass starts.”

“Do priests always wear green?”

“At Mass, yeah, usually. But for special Masses, they wear other things. Christmas and Easter and stuff, they wear different colours.”

“But if Jesus likes it, shouldn’t it be the special colour? Not an everyday colour?” Skylar challenges him. She’s the bolshier twin. Ross left them with colouring books: while Mackenzie is half-focused on filling in the picture of Abraham and Sara in her book, Skylar is fully engaged with the conversation and is jabbing a pencil threateningly in Marcus’ direction.

“Nope,” Marcus says, through a mouthful of cornflakes, “he likes it, so it’s good to wear it as often as possible.”

Skylar scowls. “Why does he like green?” she demands. Mackenzie looks up, worried.

“Will he be mad?” she says. “I used purple. For Sarah’s dress.”

“Jesus wants you to express yourself,” Marcus reassures her. “Oh, damn.” He’s dripped milk down the front of his shirt. Hastily, he puts down the bowl of cereal and grabs a cloth from the sink. While his back is turned, the door bangs open.

Skylar says, “Hi!”

Marcus turns just in time to see Dany Cobey shoot Skylar an alarmed look and mutter, “Uh, hi,” then dart towards the fridge. She yanks it open, shielding herself from Marcus’ gaze.

Marcus hasn’t exactly been hot on the trail of the bishop’s suspected demons. He’s been busy. Elisha gave him a to-do list four pages long a week ago, and made it very clear that failure was not an option. He’s seen Dany from afar, and heard Elisha’s complaints and a few anecdotes: _she actually came down and ate breakfast with me this morning, it’s sad but it made me so happy_. He’s never actually met her. Close up and in person, she’s taller than he’d expected, but she hunches and tries to take up as little space as she can. She has her mother’s brown skin and the same sharp almond-shaped eyes. Her hair is electric blue with brown roots, caught in the awkward mid-stage of growing out a fluffy pixie cut.

Again, he can’t help but think — when has a demon ever been so obvious? He’s been called into investigate hundreds of kids with dyed hair, kids who are gay, kids who are daydreamers or precocious or who read too much fantasy, kids who don’t want to be Christians, kids who swear or cry or start fights in school. It’s never demons. It’s never as simple as demons.

“Morning,” he says. “It’s Dany, right?”

The noise of her rummaging through the fridge stops. Without closing it or peeking out from behind the door, she says, extremely unhappily, “How’d you know my name?”

“Cos your mum works for the parish, and so do I. My name’s Marcus.”

Skylar bangs her pencil on the table. “Marcus! Why _green_?” she demands.

“Scholars disagree,” Marcus says. “No need to shout, love.”

Dany slams the fridge closed, having found what she was looking for — a marshmallow-studded rocky road. Marcus recognises it as one of the massive batch that Elisha had baked and brought in, and which were strictly off-limits until Mass was done and the party beginning. Marcus eyes it. “You’re braver than me,” he says. He’d have helped himself already except Mackenzie and Skylar, especially Skylar, are obvious narks and not to be trusted.

Dany stares at him uneasily, like she doesn’t know what to say. “Yeah, um. Are you a priest?”

“Do I look like a priest?”

“Guess not.”

“I’m a friend of Father Tomás. I live here.”

“Huh,” Dany says. Her eyes slide away and she fidgets, scuffs the toe of her purple Doc Martins against the floor. “Live-in friend. Cool. Great. Sounds normal. So is there — is there anywhere in this house that’s not full of _people_?”

“Lock yourself in a bathroom,” Marcus advises, then adds, “the downstairs purple one doesn’t have a smoke alarm.”

Dany gives him a hard, searching look, then shoves the rocky road in her mouth whole and leaves. Marcus gets himself a cup of coffee and the twins ask him about what happened to his ear; he deflects skilfully, and they instead demand to know about Jesus’ favourite songs, which is a conversation he’s only too delighted to have. He’s just done explaining the divine origins of Northern Soul when Elisha comes in and Skylar immediately tries to snitch on Dany. She gets as far as, “Elisha, I saw—” before Marcus interrupts her.

“Hey, Sky, what do you think Jesus’ favourite food was?”

Skylar blinks, narrows her eyes at him, and says, “Bread,” in a highly suspicious tone. “There’s lots of bread in the Bible. My name’s _Skylar_. Don’t shorten it.”

“Sorry. I won’t. Tell me more about the bread, Skylar.”

Elisha looks between them, then shakes her head, apparently giving up on understanding their conversation. Instead, she takes Marcus’ half-empty coffee cup off him, ignores his protests. “Fasting,” she reminds him. “An hour before Communion.”

“I don’t,” Marcus begins, and then stops short. He’s not excommunicated anymore. He can receive the Eucharist for the first time in over a year.

Wordlessly, he looks to Elisha. He’s not sure what he’s feeling. “Right,” she says with a smug smile. “So, fasting. And you need to get dressed for Mass.”

“I _am_ dressed for Mass.”

“Oh, hon, is that really what you’re wearing?”

“It’s a shirt. It’s got buttons and everything.”

“It’s denim.”

“It’s _formal_ denim.”

Elisha dumps his coffee down the sink and says, “If I murdered you, Father Tomás would absolve me.”

“I want a denim shirt,” Skylar says.

“Me too,” Mackenzie adds hurriedly, looking up from where she is equipping Abraham with a turquoise beard.

The door opens again, and Tomás sticks his head in. He’s trailing a gaggle of altar servers like ducklings, none of them older than fourteen; one peeks under his arm and stares bug-eyed at the colourful kitchen. Marcus winks at her and she giggles. “Elisha,” Tomás says, “we’re ready to go over to the chapel and start preparations there.”

Marcus says, “Lemme get my shoes,” but Elisha pats his arm as she walks by him.

“We’ve a good twenty minutes before Mass actually starts. You stay. Relax. Be a member of the congregation. Keep these Ross girls out of trouble.”

“I’m not trouble,” Skylar protests.

“Well, then, Skylar, you keep Marcus out of trouble. Hm?”

“I _am_ trouble,” Marcus admits, and grins at Tomás, who is looking at him with a strange expression on his face. “What?”

“What?” Tomás retorts immediately, looking away and fussing with his collar.

“Looking at me funny.”

“You’re paranoid.”

“Not nervous, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. I’ll see you in there. Break a leg. Oooh, sorry. Insensitive.”

 

* * *

 

In the sacristy, Tomás’ hands falter as he smooths down his chasuble. It’s rich green with black and gold detailing, heavy and pleated. A familiar and soothing weight on his shoulders. He swallows. Petersen is at his shoulder, trying to give him tips like he’s never said Mass before. The only reason Tomás isn’t snapping back at him is because Peteren’s words barely filter in through the overwhelming, buzzing haze of nauseous anxiety which Tomás finds himself at the centre of.

Sometimes, Marcus snaps at God. Tomás has seen him look up and say things like, “Yeah, alright, fine,” or, “Oh, shut up,” or, “I know, I know!” His exclamations are usually frustrated, churlish: when he shouts at the Almighty it’s because he knows exactly what God is telling him to do, and wishes he didn’t have to listen. Tomás envies him that clarity. He doesn’t often feel so clearly and simply compelled.

Like now, for instance: he can’t work out if this sick feeling in his stomach is a nudge from God or just his warped conscience. Maybe God doesn’t care about a few fantasies. Maybe God could allow him some slight lenience, after everything.

But probably not. If God wanted him to love Marcus, then surely it would not be like this. Surely Marcus would love him back, or at the very least everything would hurt less.

He steels himself, shakes his head clear, and looks to Petersen. “I need a word with you in private. Let’s go up to the kitchenette.”

 

* * *

 

Skylar and Mackenzie try to convince Marcus that it’s too cold to walk the twenty or so steps between the parish house and the church. He marches them outside anyway. Skylar tells him that what he’s doing is _very_ illegal, according to the Genovia Convention.

“Geneva Convention, duck,” he says, “and if you wanna report me, go ahead. Come on: Mass, then sweets after. That’s in the Bible.”

“Is it?”

“Gospel of Marcus, yep.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Look, here we are. And neither of you died from the cold.”

Elisha is standing at the door of the church with Mass leaflets. Her smile is strained and her eyes are pink and puffy. Marcus frowns at her, then squeezes Mackenzie’s shoulder. “Hey, Mack. Sorry, can I call you — yeah? Great. Mack, you take Skylar and go find a place to sit, eh? I’ll come in and find you in a second.”

Skylar looks miffed that Mackenzie is the one being deputised, but Mackenzie is clearly thrilled. They bicker as they go inside. Marcus stamps in the cold and rubs his hands together, and says to Elisha, “Let’s hear it, then.”

“Take a leaflet and go in,” Elisha says, sniffing and looking sternly at him.

“Are you okay?”

Elisha swallows. “Dany’s not coming. She’s back in the parish house. I went to get her and she just...said no. It’s stupid, I — I should have expected this. She’s made a point of not taking Communion for months. And now she says she won’t come to Mass. Not today, not next Sunday, not ever.” She rubs her forehead with a gloved hand and sighs. “It’s not Christian to force her,” she says, like she’s reminding herself. “It’s not fair.”

Marcus puts his hands on Elisha’s upper arms, squeezes. She’s wearing a big puffer jacket over her smart blue Sunday-best dress, and he notices that she’s touched up her bottle blonde perm; she must have gone to the salon just to look her best for today. Because she cares, because this matters to her just like it matters to him and to Tomás. He smiles at her, encouraging, gentle. “Hey,” he says. “It’s okay. She’s a sixteen year old girl — and she only fairly recently figured that one out, as far as I know. Right? Yeah. Bet that makes her popular out here in the middle of nowhere. She’s got some stuff on her plate. She’ll figure it out. You’re right, you can’t force her to do anything.”

“I know,” Elisha sniffles, “I know, it’s — it’s just, I’ve been there, you know? Not in the same way, sure, but I know what it’s like, place like this turning against you. People staring at you on the street. Anonymous phone calls, people leaving stuff on the doorstep, nasty rumours. When all that happened to me, this place, this church…” She sighs. “This is home to me, you know? I wish it could be home for her, too.”

Marcus looks up at the ugly, squat exterior of St Joan’s. It isn’t softened by snowfall. But the windows glow bright, and there’s the sound of people talking within. The rich red scent of incense escapes from the open door. “It’s a good place to call home,” he says.

“Well. Well, we’ll see how it all turns out.” Elisha clears her throat and stands up straighter. “Get yourself inside,” she says, and swats him in the chest with a Mass leaflet. “Go on. The twins will be running riot.”

 

* * *

 

The church kitchenette is a tiny, cramped, overheated room above the sacristy. There are no chairs: Petersen and Tomás stand awkwardly in opposite corners. “It has been...three months since my last confession,” Tomás says and looks away from Petersen so he doesn’t see the confusion on his face. Three months ago he’d broken down in a confessional in Missouri and when he’d come back to the motel and admitted what he’d done Mouse had snarled at him, _You think I don’t want to confess too? You think this isn’t killing me too? How could you be so stupid!_ But the priest hadn’t been corrupted. The Seal of Confession had held, for once. He’d been lucky.

The words have stopped in his throat. He fidgets, looks at his hands. Petersen prompts him, “You may begin.”

Tomás loves to hear confessions, hates to make his own. He looks to the ceiling — grimy white, stained and dampened from many years of boiling kettles and washing albs. “Uh,” he says. “Yes. I...I have committed the sin of lust.”

Just as he prefers to hear confession face to face, he much prefers to make his own in the box. The anonymity is reassuring, helpful. If they were separated by a confessional screen now, he wouldn’t have to see how interest and vindictive pleasure spark in Petersen’s eyes. He grimaces, and says, “Not — I have not broken my vows with another. I have not been unchaste. But I — I have thought unchaste things.”

“The Church teaches that —”

“That these things are equal, I know,” Tomás snaps, and Petersen glares at him. Tomás clears his throat. A nasty, reserved part of him which is sitting slightly apart from the proceedings thinks, _Petersen shouldn’t take face-to-face confession if he can’t control his features_. “I’m sorry, Father. I know, I know, it’s a sin, that’s why I’m confessing before I celebrate Mass.”

“It’s a wise idea.”

“I don’t — I shouldn’t have dishonoured another by thinking of them in that way.” He swallows. Petersen has an ear for scandal, probably hears the awkward clunk of the neutral pronoun, probably knows what it means. Tomás fixes his gaze past the other priest’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have been so careless, nor so...so cruel as to think those things. Nor so greedy.”

Petersen says, “Then let us pray for absolution.”

 

* * *

 

The Ross girls have somehow bagged a seat right on the front pew. Marcus guesses that despite his deputisation of Mackenzie, Skylar had a great deal of input into the decision. He sits down beside them, whispers, “Best seats in the house. Nice work.”

It’s been too long since he went to Mass. The smell of the incense settles him, takes some part of him he didn’t know was rumpled and smooths it out.

Tomás is slow and careful as he walks to the pulpit. He’s not using the crutch, but beneath the skirts of his vestments the boot cast is still visible. The candlelight plays on the gold thread across the front of his chasuble. For a moment, he hesitates at the microphone. He coughs, the sound amplified. A spike of nervousness scurries up Marcus’ spine, makes him grip his hands tight together, and then Tomás’ eyes find his. On a mad impulse, Marcus winks. It’s probably inappropriate. But he succeeds in making Tomás look down and smile, and start: “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...”

Skylar and Mackenzie are well-practiced, though Marcus can’t help but think that silent reflection is a lot to ask of two seven year olds, even if they are the daughters of a deacon. They both get antsy after the responsorial psalm, once the call-and-response bit is done and they’re settled in for the second reading — something long and difficult from Romans. Skylar kicks her legs restlessly and Mackenzie shreds the edges of the Mass leaflet. Marcus leans over and whispers, “Hey, d’you two know what’s going on?” and they both look at him like he’s dim.

“Duh,” says Skylar. “It’s Mass. And you’re not meant to talk.”

“I used to be a priest, I get special dispensation.” He takes the Mass leaflet, taps the Psalm. “Know what this all means?”

“Yeah,” Skylar says defensively. “Of course.”

“Really? Cos I don’t. This stuff is hard. _The law from your mouth means more to me / than silver and gold_ ,” Marcus prompts. “What’s that about?” Skylar gnaws her lower lip, scowling.

Mackenzie says, “You have to listen to what God says?”

“Yeah,” Marcus says, “but it’s more than that, innit?”

“It’s good to follow God’s rules,” Skylar says dubiously, “better than having money.”

An older woman seated beside the twins turns an acidic gaze on Marcus and puts her finger to her lips. Marcus says, “Sorry,” and then pulls a face at the twins, who giggle. They’re a bit more subdued through the second reading and the Gospel, Mackenzie especially, who squints down at the dog-eared mass leaflet as if trying to will it into giving up its secrets.

Tomás’ homily is on the topic of returning from the forty days in the desert. Marcus has heard him preach just once before, about a year ago; he hung around the back of St Anthony’s to listen. Then, as now, Tomás starts diffident, soft, too close to the microphone. Then something wakes up in him: he warms to his topic, gives up on his notes, and starts talking more with his hands instead of gripping white-knuckled at the sides of the pulpit. Starts asking questions to the congregation. One of them, Skylar jumps to answer. Marcus grins and Tomás catches it, and warmth flashes between them.

When Marcus leaves the pew to join the Communion line, his nervousness surprises him. Some irrational part of him has conjured up a fear that the Host will be snatched from his lips somehow: that he’ll be judged unworthy.

But when he stands in front of Tomás that falls away. Tomás blinks owlishly at him like he’s surprised, too, to see Marcus receiving Communion; then he smiles, blinding as faith, and says, “The body of Christ.”

Marcus barely manages to say, “Amen.” It comes out a croak. He shuts his eyes, opens his mouth, and takes Communion on the tongue. It’s like coming home.

 

* * *

 

Tomás makes it through Mass. He shakes hands at the door, directs everyone to the parish house. When the last straggler has left the church, when the altar servers have changed out of their cassocks and raced out of the church in search of the sweets Elisha has promised them at the party — then, and only then, does he go to the sacristy. He manages to remove his vestments before he starts to hyperventilate.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

Shouldn’t swear, not in church, not in the sacristy. He bites his knuckles and tries to haul in air through his nose.

Marcus looked at him with such tremulous pleasure, had closed his eyes and opened his mouth so trustingly and—

In the middle of _giving Communion_ , Tomás had wanted—

His fingers had been shaking, he had brushed against Marcus’ lower lip, he had been clumsy and distracted with the body of Christ in his hand, and he had wanted nothing more than to grip Marcus’ chin and kiss him open-mouthed as the wafer-flesh dissolved between their tongues. And then that blissful, euphoric, trusting expression would appear on Marcus’ face again as Tomás took him by the back of the neck and pushed him down, down until his knees hit cold church-floor. He’d push his mouth, his cheek against the thick outline of Tomás’ cock, nuzzle him through the thick layers of his vestments, then he’d close his eyes again, he’d open his lips again, and—

There’s a knock at the door. Tomás swallows, says, “I — yes?”

“It’s me, Father,” Elisha says, poking her head in and smiling. “Party’s starting. You alright?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

“I loved your homily.” She beckons him. “Come on. Come meet people properly.” A little strangled, feeling sweaty and sick, he smiles and nods and comes to join her. As he does, he sees her glance away and bite her lip. “And I — I haven’t really gotten a chance to — I wondered if we could talk, actually? Maybe not now, obviously we’re both busy, but. I’d like a word, if it’s okay.”

For a single second Tomás, awash with horror, thinks she must somehow know — must know her exciting new young priest is plagued by thoughts of his best friend on his knees, his mouth open — before he swallows and reminds himself it’s impossible. “Now is fine,” he says, “if you need to talk.”

“It isn’t fair, you should go — go enjoy the party —”

“Elisha,” Tomás says. “I want to listen to you. Is it — I noticed Dany wasn’t in church.”

“Oh, that,” Elisha says, rubs her face. “That’s just the cherry on top.”

“On top of what?”

Elisha gnaws her lower lip and says, “I’m scared,” looking up at him. Her voice is reedy. “Damn it, Father, I’m scared for her. This morning, on our doorstep, there was...it was this _dog_ …”

 

* * *

 

“Daddy, Marcus says Jesus’ favourite colour is green. Marcus used to be a priest.”

“You’ve made an impression,” says Deacon Ross. Skylar is hanging onto his arm and yanking.

“It’s my specialty,” Marcus says. “Hey, girls, I’ve got to mingle. Can’t be playing favourites, eh? I’ll talk to you in a bit.” He’s not sure how Ross will take his daughters’ newfound interest in denim and Northern Soul, and he might be running out of quick answers to their questions. Best to extricate himself before the sheen comes off and they start finding him boring.

He collects names as he weaves through the house, has his hand shaken innumerable times. He quickly goes through his jokes about what his actual role in the parish is and has to repeat some material — emotional support animal, butler, bodyguard, most trusted advisor, etcetera etcetera. He glimpses Tomás through the living room door: he’s already holding court amongst a gaggle of parishioners. Marcus grins, doesn’t try to catch his attention. Just enjoys, for a moment, watching Tomás smile from afar, watching him in his element, positively blooming — with no need for Marcus’ ersatz help. It makes him sad, but it’s a gentle, resigned, resolved kind of sadness, one which turns Marcus towards God and not away from Him. He takes strength from that, inhales, and looks away.

It’s easier already. It will keep getting easier.

Marcus finds Dany with another girl about the same age in the corner of the dining room. Where earlier she looked tired and twitchy, now she’s made-up and composed: foundation smoothing out her teenage complexion, dark purple lipstick on her mouth. Very bold. Her friend is wearing the same colour, Marcus notices. The two of them have plates piled high with food and they’re ignoring everybody else in the room, nudging each other and laughing; for a moment they don’t notice him, and then Dany’s nose twitches and she shoots Marcus one of her sharp, critical looks. She looks a lot like her mother when she does that.

Marcus comes over even though Dany is palpably trying to tell him to fuck off with her eyes. He says, “Hi again,” and smiles at her friend. “I’m Marcus. We haven’t met.”

“Alice,” the girl says, after a slightly alarmed pause. Marcus thinks _Alice Merrick, speaks in tongues_ and his smile doesn’t slip, but he looks at her a little more closely. She has long, dark hair with a blunt fringe cut above the eyebrows and her voice is very quiet. When she talks, her hand brushes her mouth like she’s trying to shut herself up, and Dany — Dany immediately twitches forwards so that she stands to attention at Alice’s elbow, protective and watchful. She doesn’t seem to notice she’s doing it. And Marcus suddenly thinks so _that’s what I look like when someone gets too close to Tomás_.

“Good to meet you, Alice,” Marcus says, and puts his hand out. Alice frowns down it.

Dany mutters, “He’s a lot, but he’s probably not contagious,” and Alice blushes, grabs his hand.

“Sorry,” she says. “I was looking at your tattoo.” Watching Dany is telling Marcus _so much_. Her eyes flicker urgently between him and Alice. Alice doesn’t usually talk to strangers, Marcus guesses: probably she clams up, makes her way through conversations with smiles and nods and non-committal hums. Dany’s not displeased, but she is cautious.

Marcus prompts, “In horror, or…?”

“I’ve never seen someone over the age of twenty five with a stick’n’poke,” Alice says, the words coming in a nervous rush. Dany gives a single syllable of laughter, but Alice isn’t trying to be funny about Marcus’ age: she sounds earnest, and goes red when she realises what she’s just said. “Uh, not that…I mean...”

“It’s cos they fade,” Marcus says with a smile, before she can descend into a state of social anxiety only accessible to sixteen-year-olds. “And also cos you live in the middle of nowhere.”

She looks grateful for his help in dragging her back from the brink of an awkward silence. She also looks a little bit delighted. “Did you do it yourself?”

“Yep. Ink and a sewing needle.”

Alice gasps, pleased and impressed. “That’s a _very_ clean line for a sewing needle,” she says, eyes glinting.

“Connoisseur, are we?” Marcus says, and then immediately Alice is shoving her paper plate at Dany. Finally, Dany’s face cracks into a slight smile. Only when she’s looking at Alice.

“She’s amazing,” Dany says to Marcus without so much as glancing at him, smug and cool.

“I’m learning. I did this — I’ve got two others, little ones, practice ones, but this is the _best_ one —” She yanks up her sleeve to reveal a line of text on her arm. Marcus whistles. Lettering isn’t easy to do freehand: there’s a reason he hasn’t inked any words on himself. But Alice’s tattoo is good, carefully spaced and only artfully shaky. Punk without being shitty. It’s a hard line to tread.

And he knows the words, too.

“‘Speak of the devil’,” he translates, looking up from it.

“I mean, no,” Alice says, rolling her sleeve down. “Well, yes and no. That’s the spirit of the original proverb, but actually, literally, it means ‘the wolf in the story’. Lupus in fabula. Fabula like a fable, a fairytale. No devils at all.”

“No devils,” Marcus echoes thoughtfully, then smiles at her. “You’ve got a talent. Are you going to go professional?”

Alice grins at him, rubs her arm shyly. “Maybe,” she says. “I don’t know. I don’t think my parents would be pleased.”

Dany is looking at him critically, cat-linered eyes narrowed. Then she nods, just once, almost imperceptible, hands Alice’s plate back and turns her shoulders slightly towards Marcus so that her body language is slightly less closed off. “So,” she says, challenging and tart, one hand on her hip, the other balancing her plate. “Live-in friend. What happened to your ear?”

Marcus lifts a hand to his bad side, says, “I’m ancient,” deadpan, “so I lost my hearing.”

“The top of it’s missing.”

“Wait, really?”

“Answer the question.”

Marcus drops his hand, looks at her consideringly, and then grins. “Okay. So, I’m at this bar, grimy little place, and I see someone making trouble for the only bartender on shift…”

 

* * *

 

It takes Tomás a long time to extricate himself from Deacon Ross, who wants to know his thoughts on NCAA football, and Sharon Capponi, who by 2pm is on her third glass of red wine and won’t stop telling him how _nice_ it is to have a young, relatable priest. Once he’s contended with them both, the party starts to quieten down a little and he dares to think that he might be able to get a drink and sit down and relax. That’s when Janey, one of the altar servers — now caffeinated and sugar-high — spills Diet Coke all over the living room rug.

“I am so sorry,” her mother tells him as together they bundle the soaked fabric into the washing machine. They’ve met before: she’s a tall, elegant blonde who helped to extricate him from Sharon, smirking a little meanly as she did so. Now she’s a lot less composed, angry in her embarrassment, high colour in her cheeks. “You don’t have to do this, Father. Really, please don’t trouble yourself. I’m mortified.”

“Please, don’t be. Children do this kind of thing. My nephew, he can’t go four steps without bashing into something.” Tomás doesn’t know if that’s still true. He hesitates for a moment, then shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Fiona Merrick.”

“It’s a pleasure.” He goes looking for detergent. Neither he nor Marcus have actually gotten around to doing any laundry here yet, a fact which becomes more and more embarrassingly obvious the longer he struggles. Trying to deflect from the fact that he doesn’t know where detergent is kept in his own house, Tomás says, “So, uh, how long has Janey served at Mass?”

“Since she made her First Communion two years ago. Ethan and Alice both used to do it, so, you know. She wanted to follow in their footsteps.”

“She’s very practiced. She was looking after one of the younger servers who was less sure.”

“That’s Janey. She didn’t get bossy, did she?”

“I would call it leadership ability.”

Fiona Merrick laughs, pride breaking through her bad mood briefly like sun through clouds. Tomás finally locates detergent. There’s something nervous in how Fiona hovers. Her fingers twitch by her sides.

Tomás says, “You’re not enjoying the party, I think.”

“It’s not that. It’s a lovely party. Thank you.”

“It really wasn’t anything to do with me. It’s all Elisha’s work.”

Something flickers on Fiona’s face. “Yeah,” she says. “Elisha.”

Tomás waits. He puts the washing machine on and steps back. It rumbles to life. Then, and only then, does he look at Fiona — and by then, she has convinced herself. No need for him to intervene at all. Again, he feels that shudder of fear: he’s so good at this now. “Father,” Fiona says, “can I talk to you, privately? It’s about the Cobey family.”

 

* * *

 

After, Tomás decides that he needs a drink.

There isn’t room in the kitchen for the drinks table, so it’s set up in the dining room — Tomás takes just a moment to be bitter about the fact that this parish house had a dining room. St Anthony’s hadn’t had anything like this, just a stipend for rent which had just about afforded him a studio flat. Then he shakes his head clear, smiles at a parishioner whose name he has already forgotten — and starts when he sees Marcus in the corner with two teenage girls, talking animatedly and laughing. One of the teenagers is Dany Cobey. Virgin-birth Dany Cobey. _It’s about the Cobey family_ Dany Cobey.

Elisha had introduced Dany to Tomás the other day. The conversation had lasted a whole fifteen seconds. She had been palpably opposed to it continuing on for any longer. Now she’s snickering behind the rim of a paper cup as Marcus holds forth.

Suspicion drips cold and slow down Tomás’ spine. It congeals in his stomach as Dany’s eyes drift to him, and she points out to Marcus that he’s staring.

The girl by her side has Fiona Merrick’s sharp features. Her voice echoes in his ears: _My daughter Alice has been — sticking needles into herself. Lying to me. Elisha just lets it happen. Elisha knows and lets it happen._

He’s stepped closer, purposeful, before he realises he’s doing it. The dull ache all through his leg and side from struggling all day without a crutch has disappeared. Marcus gives him a broad smile. “Tomás,” he says, “meet Alice and Dany.” Both of them look distinctly embarrassed by Tomás’ presence; they offer lukewarm hellos.

Dany raises a paper cup to her mouth and mutters against the edge of it, “Yeah, my mom — she introduced us.”

Marcus rolls his eyes. “Okay, I see what’s happening, it’s the priest thing.”

“It’s — no offense,” Dany says to Tomás, and shrugs. Tomás opens his mouth to reply with something just as stilted and vaguely cold, and then notices two things: one, that Dany is flushed and has red-wine teeth, and two, that Alice has a wonky tattoo on her wrist. It’s half-hidden by the sleeve of her jumper, but two words are legible: _lupus in_. He stares.

Marcus says, “Tomás?”

Tomás reaches over and plucks the paper cup from Dany’s hands. She says, “Hey!” He sniffs, and then takes a sip.

“Okay. This is red wine and Coke,” he says. “Alice, are you drinking too?”

“Tomás,” Marcus says quietly.

“I guess you knew about this.”

Marcus grabs his wrist, stares at him hard, and then says, “Let’s go have a private conversation, shall we?”

“Great idea,” Tomás snaps back, and pulls his wrist away easily, even though suddenly that hot twisted-up ache in his right hip, spreading through his side and his thigh, is back again and he’s hobbling.

They get out onto the corridor, and bump into Elisha, who looks at them both quizzically: Tomás opens his mouth and Marcus shoves him, actually shoves him past her before he can mention the fact that her teenage daughter is day-drunk in the dining room. They end up in the room which Tomás is not yet comfortable referring to as _his office_ , and which has a sign on the door especially for the party: No Entry Please!

The door slams closed behind them. Tomás grabs onto the desk for support, knuckles white, trying to disguise how much pain he’s in. “What are you playing at,” Tomás hisses, too flat for a question.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“I’m doing exactly what you taught me to do,” Tomás says, squaring up to him and planting a hand at the centre of his chest. His other hand still grips the confiscated paper cup. “ _Exactly_. Get under their skin, provoke — ”

“Jesus, Tomás, kids stealing a bit of wine during a boring church party, it’s not exactly Caligulan debauchery —”

Tomás stares at him. “Are you serious?” he hisses. “You don’t see what’s going on here?”

Marcus looks at him in confusion, and then something terrible casts a shadow across his face, something that strikes terror into Tomás: a look of pity, a look of tenderness. “Tomás,” he says, horribly gentle, “what do you _think_ is going on here?”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you think I’m unfit. Like you think I’m going mad.”

Marcus says, “I don’t think that, Tomás, I swear. Tell me.”

His voice sounding more pleading than convincing, Tomás says, “Sudden changes in personality, disruptions in nature, that girl has a tattoo that says _lupus in fabula_ , Marcus, for God’s sake —”

“Because she’s teaching herself Latin, Tomás!” Marcus says, and grabs his wrist. “She’s teaching herself Latin and she can’t decide whether she wants to go to uni to study classics, or whether she wants to be a tattoo artist.” He inhales hard, shakes his head and — smiles, helpless and crooked. Tomás stares at him. “She’s a genius, that kid. Alice Merrick. Swear down, she’s brilliant. And, sure, she gets a kick out of muttering her declension tables aloud because it creeps out the people who bully her in school. It’s not exactly the best defence, because that just gives them another thing to get on her case about, but Jesus, she’s sixteen years old and the other kids _howl_ at her in the school corridors cos she likes to draw wolves on her textbooks.”

Tomás opens his mouth to protest and then — can’t. His hand drops from Marcus’ chest. Marcus still grips his wrist, but now his fingers dangle uselessly in midair. “Oh, God,” he mutters.

“It’s — I know. I know, with everything that’s happened, I know the temptation to see demons in every corner. But they aren’t.”

“Let go of me,” Tomás says. Marcus yanks his hand away like he’s been burnt. Tomás rubs his own forehead, looks at the paper cup in his hand, and then takes a swig. He grimaces. Red wine and coke: he used to drink that as a teenager too. “It’s — Marcus — animal mutilation. What about that? There is _something_ wrong here.”

“Animal — what?”

Tomás looks up at him. “You don’t know? I thought Elisha would have told you. She likes you more than me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She was late this morning,” he says. “She found a dead dog on her doorstep. She thought it was roadkill but its throat was ripped out.”

“Fuck,” Marcus says, after an unsteady moment. He looks ill and drawn suddenly. “Oh, fuck. No, she said something about things being left on her doorstep, she didn’t say it was...that.”

After a moment, Tomás holds out the paper cup. Marcus takes it without a word and drains it, then tosses it towards the bin. He misses, grimaces, rubs his mouth on the back of his hand. “Tomás, that’s not what demons do. That’s got human cruelty written all over it.”

“I know,” Tomás snaps, “I know, I know. It was — with everything else —” Tomás shakes his head. He feels dizzy. “It made sense,” he protests, rubs his face. “It made — it made so much sense. You think I’m mad.”

Marcus takes him by the shoulders, pulls their foreheads together. Tomás doesn’t resist. He wishes he could. “I think you’re good and devoted and kind,” Marcus says, “and so much stronger than me.”

Tomás can’t help a laugh so bitter it seems to scorch his throat on the way out, acidic as bile. “You have no idea,” he mutters, baring his teeth, “you have no idea how weak I am.”

“Shhh. Don’t. Don’t, please.”

“Marcus, my head, it’s not — what if the demon didn’t go away?”

Marcus’ hands come up, to the side of his neck, the corner of his jaw. Bracing him, holding him. “It’s gone, Tomás,” Marcus says. His voice is pleading and cracking. “It’s gone, I promise. Trust me. Please.”

“But I,” Tomás says, and lifts his head, “the things I _want_ , Marcus,” and there is only the barest breath of air between their lips, and the world tips and suddenly, angry and gentle at once, he kisses Marcus just to prove him wrong.

For the barest slice of a second it’s like kissing a wall, cold and flat: and then Tomás feels Marcus’ breath stutter, his hands come up through Tomás’ hair, his lips part. Tomás screws his fists up in Marcus’ shirt. Selfishly, he wants to touch his face, his shoulders, his back, his hips, because this will never happen again — so it’s for the best that, made clumsy by terror and desire, he _can’t_. All he can do is grab uselessly at Marcus’ clothes.

Then Marcus makes a hunted-animal noise and steps back. It’s a bitter victory to see how his face twists with horror. _I told you so_ , Tomás tries to say, but his throat won’t work and he can’t corral his breathing.

Marcus says, “Fuck, fuck, sorry — Tomás, I’m so sorry —”

In the dizzy anticlimax, Tomás pants and says, “...What?”

Tears are welling in Marcus’ eyes and he’s flattened one hand over his mouth. He looks away, shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, dragging his hand away, “oh, love, I’m sorry. I’m not...I’m not right. I shouldn’t have — it ain’t right.”

“What?”

“Look at you,” Marcus says. He is: looking at Tomás, tears chasing each other down his cheeks. “Look at you, you’re so beautiful, you’re so good, and you’re where you should be. Safe, loved. Surrounded by kids who are a bit scared of you and, and middle-aged mums who are a bit in love with you. Hearing confessions and sleeping in a soft bed and eating three square meals a day and — and being at home. You deserve this, you deserve this and more, and I — I want to ruin this for you because I — Tomás, forgive me. I’ll never do it again.”

Tomás stares at him. “ _What?_ ” he says, as disbelief begins to curdle into — not hope. It’s something else. Hope has never made him shake like this.

Marcus says, “I am trying — I’m trying to suffer and be glad for it. I’m getting better at it, I swear to God. I’ll never do that again. But I can go, if you want me to. I understand.”

Tomás takes one slow,shuddering breath in; one slow, shuddering breath out. It doesn’t work. He’s worked out what the feeling is. He takes a step towards Marcus and shoves him with both hands. “You,” he says, “you goddamn idiot.”

Real terror flashes across Marcus’ face and Tomás can’t stop himself. He shoves him again, bares his teeth. “You bastard,” he snarls, “you _bastard_ , what the hell do you think I’m doing here? I never wanted to come. I never wanted to, Marcus! I came here for you! I love this place because you love this place. I _wouldn’t be here_ —”

He’s shouting. The welcome party is still going on outside. He breathes, quiets himself. He’s not shoving anymore: his hands rest on Marcus’ shoulders. “I wouldn’t be here,” he says, “without you. I don’t want to ever be _anywhere_ without you. Never again.”

Marcus is trembling hard. He shakes his head, a tight, shuddering motion. “I don’t,” he says, “I don’t understand.”

Tomás takes his face in his hands and kisses him hard. Still angry, but no longer bitter; incredulity and fury mixing now with the realisation of what he’s said, what Marcus has said; some sweet and bursting feeling beginning to balloon in his chest. Marcus kisses back, slow and clumsy, his hands — usually so tactile, reaching, quick — held uselessly either side of Tomás’ waist, not touching him, like he can’t quite close that gap.

Marcus turns his head, pushes his cheek against Tomás’, then drops his head to his shoulder. His hands come slowly to Tomás’ back. A sudden swell of pride and adoration makes Tomás clutch him tight. “I love you,” Tomás tells him. “No, _I am in love with you_.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Marcus lifts his head enough to say. His voice is thick and frightened and his fingers curl in the back of Tomás’ shirt. “Don’t, don’t — ”

Tomás cuts him off, impatient; “Shh shh shh, listen, just shut up and listen — I told you it was you I came back for. I told you, I can’t do this without you. I told you, I’m not ever going to go anywhere without you again. I moved to Michigan with you. I’ve been,” and he hesitates, because he’s only just realised what he’s about to say, but it sits on his tongue with the weight of the truth. He swallows. “I’ve been telling you I’m in love with you since I woke up in that damn hospital bed two months ago.” Marcus whimpers, muffling himself in Tomás’ shoulder. Tomás feel a sudden spike of guilt, breathes: he’s getting too intense, going too fast. He hushes him, presses his mouth to the side of Marcus’ head, murmurs,“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry, I...I don’t think I realised that either.”

“God help me,” Marcus says, “God help me, I’ve loved you for — I...”

“Yeah,” Tomás says, and then there’s nothing else. He tucks his face against Marcus’ bowed neck, kisses his ear, sniffs noisily. The terrible tremors rippling through Marcus get less and less frequent. He twists his fingers in the back of Tomás’ shirt, then lets go, then repeats the motion. Slowly, Tomás feels his own breathing settle, and feels Marcus’ do the same in turn.

And outside — outside, the _damn party_.

“Ah, shit,” Tomás mutters.

Marcus lifts his head a little — just enough to nose at Tomás’ ear. His breath is warm and ticklish and Tomás twitches, laughs giddy and terrified and delighted. “We uh.” Marcus’ voice is croaky. “Picked our fucking moment, didn’t we.”

“What, is this a bad time?”

“That’s one of your jokes, isn’t it.”

“Straight over your head. I love you.”

“You said.”

“I want to keep saying it. I love you. I _love_ you.”

“Shhh, shh shh,” Marcus says, and bumps their noses together. “I love you too. Keep your voice down, eh? _Party_.”

“We should go,” Tomás says. “We should...we should talk about this later.”

Fear flickers on Marcus’ face again, and he says, “Will we?”

“Marcus,” Tomás says. “I promise. We’ll talk about it later. I’m not going to...to forget, or brush it off.”

“Feels like maybe this isn’t real.”

“It’s real.”

“Yeah.” Marcus shakes his head, collects himself. Tomás sees his throat convulse as he swallows. “Okay. Yeah. You should go. Missing from your own party. Bet there’s gossip.”

“We’re going to have to say — I don’t know what we’re going to say.”

“Argument. I got drunk, I got shirty, you had to take me off to tell me to stop embarrassing you.”

“No,” Tomás frets, cupping his face in his hands, “no, that isn’t fair. That puts all the blame on you. No, I — I got upset about you letting the kids drink, everything boiled over, we were both stressed about making a good first impression…” He gasps, stops short. Marcus has just squeezed his waist. “Stop that,” Tomás tells him, and then starts to laugh. “Marcus, my God, how can you go from self-deprecating to handsy so fast?”

“I’ve not stopped being self-deprecating, I’m just adding handsy,” Marcus says. His shaky chuckle tickles Tomás’ lips, and he digs his fingers into Tomás’ sides, massaging. “Hey. Don’t dob the kids in.”

“You mean lie to Elisha?”

“Not lie. Just don’t...you know, don’t tell the truth. C’mon. Don’t worry about the story, either. Keep it vague, say it’s private. We shouldn’t overthink it.”

Tomás narrows his eyes and opens his mouth to tell Marcus that he is the worst hypocrite to ever walk God’s earth, then shakes his head. He kisses Marcus on the mouth, slow and cherishing, then quick on the cheek. Marcus’ stubble rasps against his lips. Then he steps back. Takes a breath, straightens his shirt, nods. “Let’s not leave at the same time.”

“So I’m sulking in here for ten minutes, am I?”

“Something like that.”

Marcus smiles at him, crooked and trembling. “Don’t let anyone check on me,” he says. “Find me all loved-up and dopey. I can’t act for shit.” But Marcus doesn’t look loved-up or dopey. He looks terrified. Concerned, Tomás goes to return to him, but Marcus stops him with a look: “ _Go_.”

 

* * *

 

When angels appear in the Bible, they are too bright and too frightening to look upon and they have to preface everything they say with _be not afraid_. Marcus feels like he has been visited by an angel. Marcus feels ruptured, and terrified, and unable — unworthy — to look upon what God has sent him.

He touches everything in Tomás’ already-messy office, flicks through papers but can’t read a word, opens drawers and shuts them and opens them again like there’ll be something new inside the second time. A spare white collar lies on the desk next to a mug with a cold, stale ring of coffee at the bottom.

Oh, Christ, he thinks, and suddenly knows he has to get out of the office. It’s too full of the clumsy, messy, sweet little details of Tomás’ professional life: his much-scrawled over homily draft, his coffee mugs, his collars. Marcus feels choked.

Maybe God sends him fleeing at that moment for a reason, because the second he’s out he bumps right into Alice Merrick, who looks at him with fear. Real, actual fear. She has a plate of peanut butter cookies in her hands and she’s shaking so badly that she’s in danger of causing a crumbling avalanche. She reels back from him and looks around wildly. It’s selfish, but Marcus breathes out in gratitude, sends a wordless prayer of thanks up above, relieved to have someone else’ crisis to focus on. He catches her elbow and says, “Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

“I — Dany,” she says, her lip trembling. “She threw up in the downstairs bathroom.”

“She — oh, shit. She wasn’t that drunk, was she?”

“It was after you left, she got really mad, downed like three glasses. Really quickly.”

“ _Shit_. She’s still in there?” Alice nods mutely. Her lower lip is trembling. Marcus clamps his hand tight her on the shoulder and steers her down the corridor towards the bathroom in question at a brisk clip. While they’re walking, he nods at the plate of cookies that Alice is clutching. “Those for her?”

“Carbs,” Alice says, her breath hitching. “I thought it might help. Oh my God. Her mom is going to be so mad. No, she’s not, she’s going to be upset. She’ll cry. That’s so much worse. _My_ mom is gonna be mad.”

“Only if they find out. It’s okay. Carbs are a great idea. You’re doing fine,” Marcus says, looking around to check the coast is clear and then rapping on the door of the downstairs bathroom. “Dany?”

A thin groan from inside. Then the lock clunks, and Dany opens the door. She looks dazed and frightened. Marcus shoves Alice inside and comes in himself. The thick smell of alcoholic bile makes his nose twitch. “You got _him_?” Dany says, her voice rough.

“He sort of intercepted me.”

“Why do you get everywhere,” Dany whimpers, putting her face in her hands.

“Habit of a lifetime. How are you doing?”

“Better than I was before I puked up what _really fucking looked like blood_.”

“Relax, that’s just what red wine looks like the second time. You gonna chuck up again?”

“No.”

“Alright. Time for mouthwash, then.” Marcus opens the cupboard, finds Listerine and a packet of Advil. Dany takes the Listerine off him with a shaking hand. He looks at Alice in the mirror. “Hey. You holding up okay?”

“I was drinking too. Only a tiny bit.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“If my mom finds out…”

“Look. This feels bad right now. Give it six months, it’s gonna be hilarious.” Dany groans and spits out purple-tinted mouthwash into the sink, then runs the tap and angles her mouth to drink from it. Marcus claps her companionably on the shoulder. Alice still looks upset, and he frowns in her direction. “Alice?”

“My dad,” Alice says. “He — mom doesn’t like how much he drinks. If she finds out Dany was drinking she’ll know I was drinking.” Her words come fuzzy and forced-out. “She’s gonna be mad at me. Mad at my dad, too.” She swallows, her throat quivering. Dany spits in the sink again. “Shouting match, probably,” Alice manages to say.

Understanding settles cold and heavy on Marcus’ shoulders. He nods, slow and considering. “Okay. Is he here?”

“No,” Alice mutters. “My mom is.”

“Alright. Describe her to me.”

“Um, blonde. Tall. Red jacket.”

“Always looks a bit like she can smell shit,” Dany mumbles thickly. Alice glares at her, annoyed and concerned and tender, such a raw look that Marcus glances away from it.

An image unfurls: an elegant woman with a glass of white wine in her hand, laughing as she helps Tomás extricate himself from Sharon Capponi. Meeting Marcus’ eyes across the room, and smiling like they were co-conspirators. Maybe that was the way she always smiled. Marcus had struggled to smile back: he had been watching the interaction like a hawk, not — not protectively, not jealously, just carefully.

No. He can think _jealously_ now. He swallows, stomach swooping. “Alright,” he says. “Lock the door after me. Dany — eat, take those painkillers, keep drinking water. Both of you get out of here as soon as you can and act natural, yeah? You’ll both be fine.”

“Don’t tell her,” Alice says, getting in his way, “oh my God, don’t tell her—”

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m not,” Marcus insists, raising his hands and then stopping himself before he grabs her arms: he’d mean it as a gesture of support, and she’d take it as threat. Her eyes are wide. Slowly, carefully, he puts his hands down. “Promise. Trust me?”

“What are you gonna do?” Dany mumbles from the sink.

“I’m going to go and be very fucking charming indeed,” Marcus sighs. “God help me.”

 

* * *

 

He bumps into Tomás in the corridor and nearly goes weak at the knees as everything that just happened abruptly plays out again in Marcus’ head. Hard shove, rushed kiss, teeth at his lips, _I am in love with you_. He’s so beautiful, even stressed and flushed and a little frenzied. Even. Especially. Marcus doesn’t know. His heart is in his throat, constricting it with every beat. As they pass each other, Marcus grabs his elbow and says, “Go distract Elisha.”

“Ow,” Tomás says through his teeth, unwilling. Marcus, alarmed, lets go.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. My leg. Just — spent a lot of time up and moving today. Elisha just asked me to find Dany, why do I need to distract her?”

“Tell her Dany just went into one of the upstairs bathrooms,” Marcus says, improvising wildly. His face is much too close to Tomás’ to be having this conversation. “Buy her some time. And then _sit down_ , Jesus Christ, Tomás. The party’s for you, just...just sit down and be celebrated, okay?”

“What’s happened to Dany? With Dany?”

“Nothing.”

“She’s being sick in one of the bathrooms, isn’t she.”

“Yeah. Purple.”

Tomás stares at him, looking horrified and slightly intrigued. “The bathroom or —”

“Both. Red wine’s some stuff, eh?”

“I blame you,” Tomás says, lays his hand over Marcus’ just for a second. For a moment, Marcus thinks: the corridor’s empty, he could absolutely steal a kiss. Just one, just quick. It’s an irresponsible, needy feeling he hasn’t had since he smoked, _I could fit one in if I’m quick and sneaky_. He swallows the urge down and Tomás steps back. “I can buy her ten minutes,” Tomás says.

“You’re an angel.” Tomás gives him a funny look — annoyed, embarrassed, pleased — and leaves. He's limping, favouring his left hand side heavily. Marcus yells, “Sit down!” at his receding back, gets a dismissive wave of the hand and nothing more. For a second, Marcus wonders if he should catch up with him to get his permission for what he’s about to do — but that’s ridiculous, and there’s no time anyway.

 

* * *

 

“So then Vindice, who is still disguised as Piato, is employed directly by the Duke and charged with finding him a woman, which he does. Sort of. You remember I told you about the skull? And how the Duke poisoned Vindice’s beloved years ago?”

“I think so,” says Tomás, who is trying to remember if Piato is anyone of importance. “Yes.”

Elisha nods enthusiastically. “So, what Vindice does is take that skull he’s been carrying around and — oh, there she is!”

Tomás exhales and tries not to look as relieved as he’s feeling. His hunch had been right; _The Revenger’s Tragedy_ is complicated enough, and Elisha enthusiastic enough about it, that the question _what’s the play about_ had easily bought Dany fifteen minutes to clean herself up. Elisha swats him on the arm. “You made me lose myself in Jacobean tragedy,” she accuses him happily. “Look, the short answer is that you’ll see. You and Marcus have tickets for tomorrow night.”

“We do?”

“I mentioned it to him. He should have told you. Dany, hon, over here.”

Dany’s a little wan, but she looks reasonable composed and doesn’t smell of either vomit or wine. Her teeth are no longer stained. “Hey,” she says, coming over; her voice is a bit rough, and Elisha tuts.

“You coming down with something?”

“Yeah, maybe. My throat hurts.”

“I was thinking, maybe an hour more and then we’ll go?”

“ _That’s_ what you were looking for me to tell me?”

“You knew I was looking for you? Dany, hon, goddammit, why didn’t you come find me?”

“Got distracted. Talking to Alice.”

Tomás extricates himself from the conversation, and heads for the kitchen. Between accumulating names and faces, navigating parish politics and getting roped into Marcus’ attempts to endear himself to the local teenage population, nevermind everything that had happened in the office — he’s barely had a chance to sample any of the food. He’s barely sat down in the last few hours.

He stops dead in the doorway of the kitchen and stares.

Marcus is flirting with Fiona Merrick. Not in the way he usually flirts with women. He does that a lot: it’s the comfortable, friendly, funny flirtation of a man who really isn’t interested. Completely sexless, completely charming, no obligations either end: the idea is to flatter and amuse, and never anything else. He’s the only man Tomás has ever met who can even occasionally get away with calling waitresses _love_.

This isn’t that.

He’s standing close, hips angled, head cocked, right in her space, and she’s leaning into it. There’s something mean and animal in the crooked smile on his face. Her hand is lingering at the crook of Marcus’ elbow.

The moment stretches out. Heat pools in Tomás’ gut. Anger and alarm and something very different and also not so different, something similarly gripping and hot. He can’t look away from the expression on Marcus’ face. Then someone runs into the back of him. He jumps, and turns, and Alice-with-the-tattoos from earlier is there, embarrassed: “Sorry! I’m sorry. Hi mom.”

“Alice,” Fiona says, already well away from Marcus. “Father Tomás, I’m sorry — seems my kids just keep causing trouble today.”

“It’s no trouble,” Tomás says, trying to pay attention to what Marcus is doing behind Fiona without Fiona noticing he’s distracted. “It’s — that’s fine.”

“Mom,” Alice says, “Janey will explode if she drinks any more Diet Coke.”

“Has she had _more_? I told her she was cut off.”

“She didn’t listen.”

Fiona Merrick makes a strangled noise of frustration, throws both hands up, and when she strides out of the kitchen with a swift, irritable apology to Tomás and absolutely nothing towards Marcus, she catches Alice in her slipstream. The door bangs. Tomás exhales slowly and turns to Marcus.

“So,” he says, “we just lied to two innocent women, parishioners of mine, who just want to be good parents.”

“For the best. Trust me.”

“If Elisha finds out,” Tomás says, voice warning, taking a step closer. He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. Marcus grins, puts his hands on his arms.

“If Elisha finds out,” he promises solemnly, “I’ll take the bullet. _Father_.”

Tomás shivers, swallows. “Good. Now that’s sorted — can you, can you not _flirt_ with my parishioners, please?”

Marcus winces, drops his hands. Tomás blinks, surprised to have had such an effect. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Swear to God, it was only to distract her. Thought she was maybe going to eat me alive. Little bit frightening, that woman.”

“What — no,” Tomás says. “No, I’m not mad. I know you were just trying to...I know what it was, what it wasn’t. I’m not...” Marcus scowls, catches his eye, looks quizzically at him. Tomás can feel a blush creeping up his neck, right to the tops of his ears. “I’m not... _mad_ ,” he says again, changing the inflection slightly this time, voice dropping. Marcus’ eyes widen.

“Oh,” he croaks.

“You looked — you looked very intense.”

“And you — liked that?”

Tomás opens his mouth, and then laughs, putting his hands to his face. “Stop. Stop it.”

“You’re blushing,” Marcus crows.

“You’re blushing _worse_ — ” Tomás doesn’t have to look to know that. But when Marcus catches his chin, Tomás drops his hands from his face, and he sees that he’s right.

Marcus swoops down and kisses him. Tomás jumps, breaks away quickly even though he’s grinning. “Stop, anyone could walk in here. Hands off me, Marcus.”

Marcus takes his hands away from Tomás, raises them — half surrender, half ta-da. His grin is wild and he’s pink across his cheeks, down his neck — even the triangle of chest exposed by the undone top buttons of his shirt is flushed. Tomás swallows and smiles through the urge to test the temperature of that little bare sliver of skin with his lips.

“Just — wait,” he says, half ordering and half asking. “Wait. A few hours more. We can deal with that. We’ve waited long enough.”

Marcus says, “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Go on. Go garner adoration.”

Tomás takes a moment to catch his breath. He gets some food, finally, and eats it in the living room while sitting down, finally, and talking to the principal of St Joan’s Catholic High, who is funny and kind and good company. The guests mill around him. The food is good, if mostly potato salad. Outside, snowflakes flutter in the yellowish early afternoon light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we! here we! here we fucking go!
> 
> 1\. So Tomás' little Communion thing is...I want to emphasise, it is Very Theologically Bad, that's part of why he freaks out so much; Catholics place a LOT of importance on Communion, seeing it as literally being Jesus' flesh and blood, and it's also an important marker of someone's belonging to the church (hence 'ex-communicated' meaning to be cut off from the Church! and hence also why Marcus is so emotional about it.) it's both an incredibly holy and an incredibly like...emotionally intense social ritual/bonding thing which is meant to bind together a congregation, and the people of the church worldwide. SO UH...
> 
> (tangent: Mouse desecrates the Eucharist! we must assume bc of the reaction of the demons that the Host she crushed up had been blessed etc, which means that in Catholic teaching it's the _actual body of Christ_. stealing/defiling/breaking etc that is one of the gravest sins. when I saw the scene at first I thought they were indicating how evil the integrated demons were -- 'look, these people eat the body of Christ as a dessert', so the way Mouse uses it to harm them instead is fascinating to me.)
> 
> 2\. Red wine and coke is a fairly common drink across Europe and South America, especially amongst teenagers and young people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalimotxo In Argentina it's referred to as 'jesus juice'.
> 
> I'm so sorry this was so late. The next chapter will...also be a while! cos it's not written yet. it will come, though, that's a promise. thank you for waiting! I hope the kissing and the declarations made it worth the wait. what little I have written of the next chapter promises to be even raunchier: there's some extremely hot n heavy hand-holding
> 
> (the rating probably will actually go up next chapter)


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